F 1408 
.M13 
Copy 1 



''/{/'/■'!M?'''W'. x^y^i" fV' 



FROM PLAZA.PATIO 




I 



INTERDENOMINATIONAL 

Home Mission Study Course 

Each volume i2mo, cloth, 50c. net {post, extra) ; paper y 30c. net 
(post, extra). 

Under Our Flag. By Alice M. Guernsey. 

The Call of the Waters. By Katharine R, Crowell. 

From Darkness to Light. By Mary Helm. 

Conservation of National Ideals. A Symposium. 

MoRMONiSM, THE IsLAM OF AMERICA. By Brucc Kinney, D.D. 

The New America. By Mary Clark Barnes and Dr. L. C. Barnes. 

America, God^s Melting-Pot. By Laura Gerould Craig. 
Paper, net 25c. (post, extra). 

In Red Man's Land. A Study of the American Indian. By 
Francis E. Leupp. 

Home Missions in Action. By Edith H. Allen. 

Old Spain in New America. By Robert McLean, D.D., and 
Grace Petrie Williams. 

Young People's Course 

Paper, net 25c. (post, extra). 

From Plaza, Patio and Palm. A Book of Borrowings. Com- 
piled by Eva Clark Waid. 

Junior Course 

Cloth, net 40c. (post, e'jift'ra) ; paper, net 25c. (post, extra). 
Best Things in America. By Katharine R. Crowell. 
Some Immigrant Neighbors. By John R. Henry, D.D. 
Comrades From Other Lands. By Leila Allen Dimock. 
GooDBiRD THE Indian. By Gilbert L. Wilson. 
All Along the Trail. By Sarah Gertrude Pomeroy. 
Children of the Lighthouse. By Charles L. White. 



FROM 
PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

A BOOK OF BORROWINGS 

COMPILED BY 

EVA CLARK WAID 
Illustrated 



ISSUED BY THE 

COUNCIL OF WOMEN FOR HOME MISSIONS 
600 Lexington Avenue, New York, N. Y. 






Copyright 1916 

Council of Women for Home Missions 

New York 



# 







3-C 



li' 



DEC -8 1316 

©CU453150 

V 



CONTENTS 

I. When the Old World Sought the New . . 9 

II. New World Plazas 21 

III. Sunshine in the South West 35 

IV. The Palms of Cuba 53 

V. Porto Rican Patios 61 

VI. What the New World Gives the Old. ... 83 



FOREWORD 



I HAVE strung for you a string of beads borrowed 
from many writers in many lands. Some of them 
are old Moorish silver beads wrought with Byzantine 
skill, others are Spanish filigree work. Some are beaten 
from the New World nuggets and others carved from 
the curious woods of the West Indies. Some are 
native beans and buds from tropic isles and some still 
bear the scent of California rose leaves. Some are Indian 
pottery with borrowed Castillian ornament and others 
are carved from bones that long have bleached on desert 
wastes. Some are gay and some are sombre, but all are 
strung on two threads twisted tightly together, the work 
of man and the will of God. And the clasp for this 
strand is the precious beaten gold of service — like that 
first gold brought by Columbus from the New World to 
the Old, and beaten into a holy vessel for the Church. 

Eva Clark Waid. 



A WORD FOR LEADERS 

This little book, compiled for the use of young people 
from twelve to twenty, presents some problems to the 
leaders of such young people. Usually school cares are 
so heavy and hours of study so long that it is difficult 
tu secure outside reading or even any close study of mis- 
sionary text books. So that much must be supplied by 
the skillful leader to supplement the text-book. 

This book presents the theme of Spanish- Americans 
in Cuba, Porto Rico and the United States and its mar- 
ginal indices are designed to simplify class reading or 
assignment of topics. The programs are full so that 
a choice may be made if it is not possible to give all of 
a program, or sections from the text-book may be sub- 
stituted if necessary. Unless a definite outside reference 
is given, the material for all answers, save roll calls, will 
be found in the Chapter itself, though it is hoped that 
there will be some outside reading on each theme. 

The best authorities have been sought and their exact 
words quoted on the different questions taken up, but 
there has been an endeavor to make of it a harmonious 
and complete story by the careful assembling of these 
quotations. 

Each chapter is planned to give a general view of 

5 



6 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

some Spanish-American situation and to make a per- 
sonal appeal for service from other young Americans. 

The leader will find the following helpful: 

A map of North and South America with a special 
outlining of all the regions bordering the Gulf and the 
Caribbean Sea. This map should be of paper or cloth 
so it can be marked or pasted upon, and should have 
only simple outlines on it and a few names. This can 
be supplemented by reference to school geographies and 
small outline maps of Cuba, Porto Rico, New Mexico, 
etc. The fine maps published in the National Geographic 
Magazine also can be used, and it also furnishes photo- 
graphs of the best grade. 

Fine ideas for posters, invitations, decorations, etc., 
can be borrowed from Leaders' Manual for Star 49, 
Miss Katherine Crowell, Woman's Board of Home Mis- 
sions, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York. 

Leaders' Manual for The Children of the Lighthouse, 
Miss Applegarth, Council of Women for Home Mis- 
sions, 600 Lexington Avenue, New York. The price of 
each is ten cents. 

Current magazines will be found invaluable and mis- 
sionary magazines most helpful. 

Sets of post cards on Cuba, Porto Rico and New Mex- 
ico can be secured from denominational Boards. 

The music of the programs has been selected from the 
Missionary Hymnal, price ten cents, which can be se- 
cured from any denominational Board. 



FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 7 

The following books will prove helpful to a leader 
and in many of them will be found a bibliography of 
other books of value in the study. 

Poems of American History — Burton Stevenson — 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 

Stories of the States — Elbridge Brooks — Lothrop, 
Lee & Shephard, 

Pioneer Spaniards in North America — William Henry- 
Johnson. 

The Gilded Man — A. Bandelier. 

Spain in America — F. Bourne. 

Conquest of Mexico — Prescott — Lippincott 

Life of Columbus — Irving. 

Cuba and Porto Rico — Forbes Lindsay. 

American Explorers and What they Saw — Book of 
Knowledge. 

California and the Missions — Helen Hunt Jackson — 
Little, Brown & Co. 

Advance in the Antilles — Howard Grose. 

Old Spain in New America — Robert McLean. 

The Spanish Settlements — Woodbury Lowery — G. P. 
Putnam's Sons. 



8 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

PROGRAM I 

THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW 

Hymn — God is working his purpose out. 

Bible Lesson — A better country — Hebrews xi. 13-16. 

Prayer Hymn — Open my eyes that I may see. 

Roll Call — Answer with the name of some object asso- 
ciated with Spain. 

Introductory Talk — What was the Old World seeking 
when it found the New? — Refer to paragraph on 
Hopes. 

Recitation — Columbus — Joaquin Miller — Poems of 

American History. 
Three Discoverers and Their Routes — Outlined on 
the map — Refer to paragraph on Heroes — Columbus, 
De Soto, Cortes. 
Three Stories of the Discoverers — 

The Fountain of Youth — Hezekiah Butterworth. 
The Seven Cities — Lowery's Spanish Settlements, 

Chapter V. 
The Fair God — Prescott's Conquest of Mexico. 
Paper — Spanish Conquerors and Spanish Cruelty — Re- 
fer to paragraph on Hindrances. 
Discussion — Leader opening and closing. 

How did the English and Dutch colonists differ 

from the Spanish? 
Old Spain in New America — Chapter I. 
A Dish of Dates — In each date a small roll of paper 
on which is a date and historical fact concerning the 
discovery of the New World. 



CHAPTER I 
WHEN THE OLD WORLD SOUGHT THE NEW 

**One year God lifted the curtain from a hidden con- 
tinent and gave his children a whole new world in which 
to carry out his purposes." — Phillips Brooks. 

"He gained a world: he gave that world 
Its noblest lesson 'On and On.' " 

— Joaquin Miller. 

"The New World has been found! — How paltry are 
our attempts to realize the significance of that event ! We 
talk glibly about a change being wrought in the world's 
history, but we come far from understanding how great 
that change was. It is simply beyond us to appreciate 
what it meant to have Europe cease to be synonomous 
with the world." — Arthur Gray. 

"Meaning to enter the back door of an Old World, 
he knocked at the front door of a New World." — Lowell. 

History. 

In the beginning of the sixteenth century Spain occu- 
pied perhaps the most prominent position on the theatre 
of Europe. Her numerous states were consolidated 
under one monarchy. The Moslem crescent after reign- 
ing there for eight centuries was no longer seen on her 
borders. 

International communication was greatly facilitated by 
several useful inventions. Such was the art of printing, 
the establishment of posts, and lastly, the mariner's com- 
pass. — Prescott. 

9 



10 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

The nations of Spain and Portugal on the remote 
frontiers of Europe were far removed from the great 
trade routes of Asia. Thus, naturally, they turned their 
eyes on the great ocean which washed their shores and 
sought for new domains of commerce. Columbus seems 
to have set forth not so much to discover new countries 
as to find a shorter way to India. He conceived the 
possibility of reaching the Eastern shores of Asia whose 
provinces of Zipango and Cathay were emblazoned in 
such gorgeous colors in the narratives of Mandeville and 
Polo, by a more direct route. 

With the union of the crowns of Castile and Aragon 
by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella and by the 
overwhelming defeat of the dark complexioned Moors, 
Spain had become a nation filled with soldiers and ad- 
venturers. Her soldiers were brave and the acknowl* 
edged leaders of chivalry. With the discovery of the 
New World Spain had leaped to the front and become, 
for a time at least, the greatest nation of the day. Ships 
were constructed in great numbers and sent out filled 
with voyagers "toward that part of the horizon where 
the sun set." — Prescott. 

As her discoveries progressed, Spain sought in every 
way to close channels of information concerning her 
West Indian possessions. As early as 1511 it was forbid- 
den to supply foreigners with maps or charts. Such was 
the secretiveness of the authorities that no official map 
of the western discoveries was published in Spain until 
the year 1790. Another precaution was the total exclu- 
sion of foreigners from the crews of vessels sailing to 
the West Indies. But with the rapid extension of Spain's 
rich overseas traffic the high seas were soon filled with 
vessels of other nationalities preying upon it . . . 



WHEN THE OLD WORLD SOUGHT THE NEW 11 

very early in the course of the century it became cus- 
tomary for vessels to sail together in companies in order 
to afford mutual protection. In 1564 arose the Armada 
de las Carreras de las Indies whose duty it was to escort 
the fleets to and from the Indies. The fleets sailed twice 
a year from Havana, passed north through the Straits 
of Florida to the neighborhood of Bermuda, whence they 
set their course for the Azores and then Seville. — Lowery. 
In the year 1786 beginning at Porto Rico on the East 
the dominions of Spain stretched westward to California 
and northward to Missouri and southward to Chile. 
Among the large islands in the West Indies all except 
Jamaica and Santo Domingo acknowledged Philip's will ; 
on the Northern Continent what are now Florida and 
Southern Alabama and Mississippi and all the area west 
of the Mississippi River and Mexico were Spanish; on 
the Southern Continent everything made obeisance except 
the Guianas and Brazil. — Arthur Gray. 



Heroes. 



To Castile and Leon Columbus gave a new world. 

In 1492 Cristobal Colon, better known to us as Chris- 
topher Columbus, set sail under the standard of Spain 
from Palos, and on October 12 discovered an island to 
which he gave the name San Salvador. He was a Gen- 
oese who had vainly sought recognition for his plans 
and theories concerning the new passage to the Indies. 
Isabella of Spain finally took him under her protection 
and fitted out the expedition. 

In his four voyages, he "but opened the gates of the 
New World that others might enter," and his latter years 
were clouded with ingratitude, imprisonment and pov- 
erty. To the end of his life after four voyages, in two 



12 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

of which he coasted for hundreds of miles along the 
shores of what we now call Central and South America, 
he continued to believe he had reached the Indies. — 
Bryce. 

He was a great world soul. The march of Western 
civiHzation is his monument. — Starr. 
As the chief histrion down to the footHghts walks in 

some great scene, 
Dominating the rest — I see the Admiral himself, 
History's type of courage, action, faith. 

— Walt Whitman. 

The idea of discovering the island called Bimini said 
to exist somewhere in the Indies, where wonderful waters 
flowed that restored old age to youth and kept youth 
always young, occupied the mind of Ponce de Leon, Gov- 
ernor of Porto Rico. Strange it seemed that he and 
others should be glad to risk their lives and fortunes in 
pursuit of a chimera! 

However, the followers of Columbus, the most of 
them ignorant and credulous, had seen a mysterious new 
world rise, as it were, from the depths of the ocean. 
As the islands, one after another, appeared before their 
astonished eyes, they discovered real marvels every day. 
The air, the land, the sea were full of them. There was, 
according to old legend, such a fountain of youth some- 
where, and where was it more likely to be found than 
in this New World? But alas! Ponce sailing in March 
from Porto Rico, returned in October looking much 
older, say the chronicles, than when he went in search 
of rejuvenation. And later finding death where he had 
hoped to find perennial youth, his bones were laid to 
rest in San Juan where his statue also stands in the plaza 
of San Jose. 



WHEN THE OLD WORLD SOUGHT THE NEW 13 

Ponce had a dog named Bezerillo that made wonderful 
havoc among these people and knew which of them were 
in war and which were in peace, like a man; for which 
reason the Indians were more afraid of ten Spaniards 
with the dog than of one hundred without him, and there- 
fore he had one share and a half of all that was taken 
allowed him, as well in gold as slaves and other things 
his master received. He also grew most familiar with 
native speech at which the Spaniards much admired. — 
Herrera. 

Hernando Cortes, born in Spain in 1485, is one of the 
greatest figures among the discoverers and conquered 
for Spain its richest and most romantic possession, Mex- 
ico. After varied experiences in the West Indies he 
was made captain of the expedition sent to explore those 
mysterious regions of the Mexican Gulf. In the won- 
derful volumes of Prescott's Conquest of Mexico is re- 
corded the story of Cortes' adventures and his conquest 
of that strange civilization whose origin still to-day re- 
mains a mystery to historian and archaeologist. 

The Aztecs had long confidently looked for the return 
of their benevolent deity, Quetz al coatl, God of the air, 
who had promised to return to them and bring with him 
men with white skins. In Cortes, Montezuma, King of 
the Aztecs, saw this returning deity and this remarkable 
tradition prepared the way for the success of the Span- 
iards in 1519. 

It was on September 1, 1513, that Vasco Nunez de 
Balboa began his march across the Isthmus of Panama 
and on September 25th stood "silent on a peak in Darien" 
at the sight of an immense ocean stretching away toward 
the west. Four days later, Balboa waded knee deep into 
the new ocean, tasted its salt waters and cried aloud to his 



14 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

followers, "I take real and corporal and actual posses- 
sion of this sea and its coasts for the King of Spain." 

Although not an acre of that vast territory pertains 
to-day to the country whose agents discovered it, Spain 
has nevertheless left her imprint indelibly stamped upon 
it. — Enock. 

Among Spain's many brave men who longed to seek 
adventures in the New World was Ferdinand De Soto. 
After a year's preparation in Spain and the West Indies 
he sailed from Havana May 18, 1539, landing at Tampa 
Bay, Florida, May 30. 

For three years he and his men wandered among hos- 
tile Indians and through the dense forests of this unknown 
land. Twice there were terrible battles between the In- 
dians and Spaniards. They were starved, wearied and 
fever stricken ; every day some of them were left by the 
way. De Soto himself was ill and weak. At last there 
was heard in the distance a roaring, rumbling sound. The 
men stopped to listen. Certainly it was like the sound 
of rushing water. The men hurried on. And see! 
There were gleams of water. Could it be the ocean? 
For an instant they believed they had reached the ocean, 
but far away they could see another bank. De Soto 
and his men had discovered the Mississippi ! Beneath its 
great waters, May 21, 1542, his men buried De Soto, 
stealthily at midnight, so that the Indians might not 
know that white men were mortal and that their chief 
was dead. — Mara L. Pratt. 

Many attempts have been made to trace the name 
California but its first mention is in one of the romances 
of Don Quixote's ill-fated library which was burned by 
the priest and barber, "The deeds of the most valiant 
knight Esplaudian, the son of Amadis of Gaul," first 




Vopyriyht Detroit Publishing Co 
WHEN THE OLD WORLD SOUGHT THE NEW 



WHEN THE OLD WORLD SOUGHT THE NEW 15 

printed in 1510 and evidently a great favorite in Spain, 
as eight editions testify. By what strange process this 
name was transferred to the Western Coast is not known. 
— Lower y. 

But a Portuguese sailor, Juan Cabrillo, unknown and 
with no recorded history, under orders of the Viceroy of 
Mexico, Mendoza, assuredly was the one who took pos- 
session of this land in the name of the king and the 
viceroy, August 21, 1542. 

It is a story of brave adventure by a real explorer 
striving to discover an unknown shore and meeting with 
every form of disaster. Dying in January, 1543, he com- 
manded his sailors to continue the exploration and they 
probably reached the mouth of the Columbia River before 
turning back to Mexico. 

The chronicle of the voyage is full of interesting de- 
tail as to Indian life, the big trees drifted on the shore, 
beautiful groves and vast herds feeding on luxuriant 
pastures. 

Hopes. 

It was a romantic and a stirring age, and the wars 
with the Moors being over, and hostilities with the French 
suspended, the bold and restless spirits of the nation, 
impatient of the monotony of peaceful life, were eager 
for employment. To these, the New World presented a 
vast field for wild enterprise and extraordinary adven- 
ture, so congenial to the Spanish character in that period 
of its meridian fervor and brilliancy. Many hidalgoes of 
high rank, officers of the royal household, and andalusian 
cavaliers, schooled in arms and inspired with a passion 
for hardy achievements by the romantic wars of Gran- 
ada, pressed into the expedition, some in the royal serv- 



16 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

ice, others at their own cost. To them it was the com- 
mencement of a new series of crusades, surpassing in 
extent and splendor the chivalrous enterprises of the 
Holy Land. They pictured to themselves vast and beau- 
tiful isles of the ocean to be overrun and subdued ; their 
internal wonders to be explored, and the banner of the 
cross to be planted on the walls of the cities they were 
supposed to contain. Thence they were to make their 
way to the shores of India, or rather Asia, penetrate into 
Mang, and Cathay, convert, or what was the same thing, 
conquer the Grand Khan, and thus open a glorious 
career of arms among the splendid countries and semi- 
barbarous nations of the East. — Washington Irving. 

When the Spaniards came to the New World they 
came mainly for the sake of gold. Few settlers came 
from Spain to till the soil. The first object was to seize 
all that could be found of the precious metals, much to 
the astonishment of the natives who thought that gold 
must be some kind of a fetish to them. The next was 
to discover mines and make the Indians work them. The 
third was to divide up the more fertile regions into large 
estates, allotting to each adventurer his share of laborer- 
natives along with his share of the land. No settlers 
came to clear the ground and build homes. — Bryce. 

Cortes repaired to the house of the Governor — they as- 
sured him there would be no doubt of his obtaining a 
liberal grant of land to settle on. "But I came to get 
gold," replied Cortes, "not to till the soil like a peasant." 
— Prescott. 

New bands of adventurers were attracted to the New 
World and ship after ship set sail toward the setting 
sun, loaded with adventurers and their followers. For- 
ever ringing in the ears of all was the refrain 



WHEN THE OLD WORLD SOUGHT THE NEW 17 

Gold, gold, gold, gold! 

Bright and yellow, hard and cold ! 

It cannot be doubted that a far-reaching missionary 
interest lay behind the attempt to extend the confines of 
the Christian world. On Cortes' standard emblazoned 
with a red cross was the motto "Friends, let us follow the 
cross and under this sign if we have faith we shall con- 
quer." The Spanish captains fought to convert the over- 
seas infidels with the same crusading zeal with which they 
had driven the Moors from Spain. — Panama Congress — 
Commission on Message and Method. 

For by such means they will the sooner be converted 
and come to the knowledge of God and our Holy Cath- 
olic Church, which is my chief desire, — Order of the 
King. 



Hindrances. 



Our admiration of the dauntless heroism displayed 
by the early Spanish navigators is much qualified by a 
consideration of the cruelties with which it was tar- 
nished. 

Every Spaniard had his proportion of slaves in the 
New World and was individually entrusted with the 
unlimited disposal of the lives and destinies of their 
fellow creatures. They abused this trust in the grossest 
manner. Every step of the white man's progress in the 
New World may be said to be on the corpse of a native. 
— Irving. 

The humane and orthodox Spaniards Antonio de Ulloa 
and Jorge Juan in their secret report to the King of 
Spain in 1746 say, "The miserable state of the Indians 
is to be ascribed to the vices of the parish priests, the 



18 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

extortions of the corregidores and the bad treatment 
which they generally received from all Spaniards." — 
Bryce. 

Las Casas affirms that more than 12 million lives 
were wantonly destroyed in the New World within 38 
years after its discovery. In 1515 Las Casas returned 
again to Spain and pleaded the cause of the dying natives 
in tones which made the dying Monarch tremble on his 
throne. — Irving. 

The sixteenth century, the age of discoveries, was also 
the age of conquest. The discoverers advanced to con- 
quest over the ruins of cities and the bodies of Indians. 

The age of conquest is an age of greed and bloodshed 
in which the impetuous adventurers roam from Mexico 
to Patagonia, realizing, in the words of de Herredia's 
sonnet, "their brutal and heroic dream." — Calderon. 

The policy actuating Spain was well expressed by one 
of the Mexican viceroys as follows : 

**Let the people of these dominions learn once for all 
that they are born to be silent and to obey and not to 
discuss or have opinions in political affairs.' 

Of the 170 viceroys who ruled in the Americas, only 
four were of American birth and these were reared in 
Spain. 

The Spanish conquistadores performed prodigies of 
valor and were among the most intrepid explorers of the 
world, but they were impatient of the surer if slower 
methods of development which characterized the Anglo- 
Saxons. They encountered a menial race which per- 
formed all manual labor for them and, in the long run, 
the fabulous wealth of Mexican and Peruvian mines 
proved of less account than the corn lands and forests 
and iron mines of North America. — Enock. 



WHEN THE OLD WORLD SOUGHT THE NEW 19 

The natural contempt of the Spaniards for manual 
labor was increased by the law of the Indies, enacted in 
Madrid, which said "Gentlemen must not mix with trad- 
ers and sellers of merchandise." — Enock. 

It cannot be denied that Spain at this period surpassed 
most of the nations of Christendom in bigotry. 

Thomas Torquemada is condemned to infamous im- 
mortality as the fierce leader of that terrible tribunal 
called the Inquisition, which for three centuries extended 
its iron sway over Spain and her colonies. 

The object of the Inquisition was the protection of the 
true Catholic faith and the destruction of heretics, and 
its judgments were directed chiefly against the Jews. The 
tortures invented by the Inquisitors have become prov- 
erbial in our language. — Prescott. 

We cannot follow Columbus's voyages or the ad- 
ventures of his followers step by step but we must feel 
that the discovery of America is an epic poem worthy 
the mettle of the great discoverer and his men. And 
so the civilization of what is called Latin America began 
with the first Spanish settlement, the first Indian blood 
shed by the greed of the white conqueror and the first 
attempt to Christianize the inhabitants of the new found 
land. — Francisco J. Yanes. 



20 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

PROGRAM II 
NEW WORLD PLAZAS . 
Hymn — Not alone for mighty empire. 
Bible Lesson — The builders of cities — Neh. ix. 24-3L 

Prayer — Lord, as I study old and new, 

Show me the task I have to do. 

Alphabetical Roll Call — Answer — Things the colo- 
nists brought from Spain. 

Talk — How did Spain govern her New World prov- 
inces ? — Conquest of Mexico — Prescott. 

Reading — Description of a Mexican city — The lustre of 
Ancient Mexico — Vol. III. — Nafl Geo. Magazine 
—July, 1916. 

Pictures — Spanish customs in New World Plazas — Il- 
lustrated with post cards, photographs and maga- 
zines. Refer to paragraph New World Customs. 

Recitation — Quivira — Arthur Guiterman — Poems of 
American History. 

A Comparison — Thanksgiving in New England in the 
early days — Alice Morse Earle. A Spanish fiesta 
in San Francisco — Rezanof, Gertrude Atherton, 
Chapter 22. 

Historical Statements — Mexican War, Founding of 
Santa Fe, Gadsden Purchase. 

Story — Angels of Buena Vista — Whittier. 

Dish of Definitions — Stick candy rolled in wax paper, 
then a definition wrapped around each stick and 
tied with Mexican colors, red and green. Define 
such words as plaza, adobe, fiesta, caravel, con- 
quistador, etc. 



CHAPTER II 
NEW WORLD PLAZAS 

"There is no city among the Spanish speaking peoples 
but has its restfully attractive plaza, playground, club 
house and concert hall, all in one for all the people." — 
Starr. 

"The plaza constitutes the official and social center of 
the town and here the senors, senoras and senoritas 
promenade and enjoy the music of bands and the gayety 
of social life, From the plaza run the main streets lined 
with dwelling houses and shops. The four sides of the 
plaza are generally faced by public buildings, the cathe- 
dral taking an honored place and the municipal building 
a prominent position." — Enock. 

"Beautiful are the isolated little plaza towns nestling 
among the brown hills of New Mexico. All the great 
happenings of the world slip by and the quaint dark peo- 
ple of the hills live on in a peaceful round of farming, and 
weaving. Sometimes we think the work very slow, but 
we must all take courage for customs and convictions 
of a lifetime are not changed in a little while, especially 
in these isolated little plazas." — Olga Hoff. 

"As we entered the plaza, the impression made was 
one never to be forgotten. There were hollyhocks tall 
and gay against the adobe houses, diminutive garden 
plots with their tasseling corn and rows of chili; flower 
beds, small but gay reminders of the old-fashioned flower 
gardens of New England; little orchards of apricot, 
peach, apple and plum; irrigating ditches bordered by 

21 



22 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

willow, cotton wood and other low bowing trees ; and as 
a background for all, the picturesque assemblage of adobe 
houses — no wonder artists search out these plaza re- 
gions." — Theodora Finks. 

"We visited some of the out of the way plazas where 
the people still live in the old Mexican fashion and I did 
feel so sorry for the girls of my age and of course for 
everybody, for life did not really seem to be life at all; 
and yet it might be so perfectly splendid with this glori- 
ous air and sunshine if the people took some interest in 
living and knew how to live." — Betty's Travels. 

New World Explorers. 

Generally speaking, by 1540 the New World had been 
conquered for and by Spain. There was still an infinity 
to be done, but the broad foundation of Spanish America 
had been laid, and in a cement that time will never 
crumble. — James. 

Narvaez and his goodly company of three hundred had 
started in 1528 from Florida on one of the most wonder- 
ful adventures of the age, crossing the continent from 
ocean to ocean. After calamities, shipwreck, warfare, 
fever and famine, four of the expedition in 1536 finally 
reached the city of Mexico, having traversed many sec- 
tions of what is now the great South West. The story 
of the journey, as recorded by Cabeca de Vaca, one of 
the survivors, and the maps left by him on his return 
to Spain, together with the records of the two monks, 
Fray Juan and Fray Marcos in their explorations, un- 
doubtedly influenced the new viceroy Antonio Mendoza 
to send out Coronado and his famous group of cavaliers 
with Fray Marcos in 1538 to explore the land to the 
north. 



^^IHS^B 


't ^ 


W" 




^^ 


' ^f E 


M 


Wjm 


^^■syflv 






W " 


^^HpfPiiB 


i-.. i 




■ * i 


11 

1 


¥'■ 


"lyi 


% , 
^^^ ..<..... 


: 1 


BPHfc 


% 




■II 



NEW WORLD PLAZAS 23 

Cibola. 

Cibola, meaning buffalo, may have been applied by the 
natives to the buffalo country and so the Spaniards mis- 
took it for the name of a city. 

Through all these years the Spaniards had lent a credu- 
lous ear to the tales and traditions of the Seven Cities 
of Cibola. This Indian tale, which we now know was 
simply the first rumors to reach the Spaniards of the 
Pueblo towns of New Mexico, was coupled in their 
mind with the Pre Columbian Spanish legend of the 
Island of the Seven Cities, where bishops fleeing from the 
invading Moors had found a refuge. — Lowery. 

As it was with Florida and its Fountain of Youth, 
so with the South West, fairy tales were far more im- 
portant agents than facts in leading great explorers. — 
James. 

What pen may paint their daring, these doughty cavaliers. 
The cities of the Zuni were humbled by their spears. 
Wild Arizona's barrens were pallid in the glow 
Of blades that won Granada and conquered Mexico. 
They fared by lofty Acoma; their rally call was blown 
Where Colorado rushes down through Godhewn walls of 

stone. 
Still North and East where deserts spread and tireless 

prairies rolled, 
A fairy city lured them on with promises of gold. 

— Quivira by Guiterman. 

New Mexico. 

Santa Fe, the romantic! Long ago the Spaniards 
came with grim faces set in casques of steel, Coronado's 
men, venturesome rovers, lured on across the desert 
wastes to find the gold of Cibola. About 1600 other 



24 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

Spaniards founded this city, Santa Fe de San Francisco. 
Soon they built the old palace. For eighty years Span- 
ish Governors ruled. Then the Pueblo Indians revolted, 
drove the Spaniards out and held the palace until 1692. 
Then came more governors of Spain and Mexico, until 
General Kearney came with an American army in 1846. 
One of the American Governors, General Lew Wallace, 
wrote Ben Hur in this same old palace. — Vogt. 

Of all the territories of America, New Mexico alone 
may point to a poem as the original authority for its early 
annals — an epic poem written by Captain Gaspar de Villa- 
gra, one of the companions of Onate, and published in 
1610, only eleven years after Onate took possession of 
the domains for "God, the king and myself." — Bancroft. 

In 1660 the population of New Mexico was given as 
24,000. Three deserters from La Salle reached New 
Mexico in 1693 and nine French Canadians in 1739. In 
1805 James Pursley, an Englishman, traveled to Santa 
Fe and in 1806 Lieutenant Zebulon Pike attempted to 
establish a U. S. fort on New Mexican territory. 

In 1821 New Mexico passed under the new republic 
of Mexico, a federation of 19 states and four territories. 
From 1839-1846 a cruel governor ruled the territory so 
the inhabitants were not unwilling to come under the 
sway of the U. S. Government in 1846, at the close of 
the Mexican War. 

New Mexico shared some of the excitement of the 
Civil War, being attacked and invaded by the Confed- 
erate troops who hoped to establish a great Southern 
empire of slave states. Indian wars taxed all the ener- 
gies of the territory for many years and only the coming 
of the Sante Fe Railroad brought any real body of set- 
tlers into the country. 



NEW WORLD PLAZAS 25 

Arizona. 

Nearly all of what we now call Arizona has no other 
history before 1846 than the record of exploring en- 
tradas from the South and East. The one exception is 
the small tract, not more than 60 miles square, from 
Tuczon south, which contained all the Spanish settle- 
ments. The name of Arizona's chief river, the Gila, is 
however first used in a report of 1630. 

December 30, 1853, James Gadsden, U. S. Minister to 
Mexico, concluded a treaty by which the boundary line 
was moved southward so as to give the U. S. for ten 
million dollars all of Arizona south of the Gila. The 
territory was believed to be rich in precious metals. In 
1863 it was made a separate territory. — Bancroft. 

To Americans in the earliest years, Arizona seemed, 
except a small portion of the later acquired Gadsden pur- 
chase, an utterly barren and worthless waste of sandy 
deserts and rocky mountains, probably rich in minerals 
but of no agricultural value whatever. Progress, how- 
ever, has been constant and the land is found wonder- 
fully productive wherever water can be obtained. 

Texas. 

No state has had a more remarkable history than 
Texas. The flags of three foreign powers, France, Spain 
and Mexico, have floated over her, and for nine years, 
from 1836-1845, she was an independent republic. The 
first Europeans to visit her were the Spaniards who 
sailed along the Gulf Coast in 1519. They also made 
interior explorations as early as 1535, but made no at- 
tempt to colonize. La Salle reached Texas in 1685, but 
his colony was short lived. 

In 1689 or 1690 the Spanish established a mission at 



26 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

San Antonio and a fort was placed there in 1718. The 
early settlers were from the Canary Islands. In 1824 
Texas passed from Spain to become a part of the Re- 
public of Mexico. 

In 1836 occurred the famous battle of the Alamo, last- 
ing through eleven days, and resulting in the freedom of 
Texas. Texas joined the Union in 1845. El Paso, Texas, 
has rightly been called in these later days the gateway to 
Mexico. — Nevin Winter. 

California. 

Later explorations opened up the wonders of Cali- 
fornia and Cabrillo, Portola and Junipero Serra are 
names associated with the discoveries along its shores 
as far north as San Francisco in the 17(X)'s. The story 
of its colonization was the story of the missions and 
their growth and increase and in the transfer to the 
United States in 1846 the main problems were associated 
with these lands and titles. 

New World Customs. 

The America conquered by the Spanish and Portuguese 
was peopled by various races and occupied by many dif- 
ferent civilizations. The invaders unified all these re- 
gions, imposing uniform laws, customs and religions. 

Spanish and Portuguese took Indian wives. The di- 
versity of the elements was paving the way for a new 
caste. The negro, imported by the Spaniard for the 
cultivation of the tropical soil, added another complica- 
tion. We find in the seventeenth century as in the twen- 
tieth, in the colonies, as to-day in the republics, every va- 
riety of this admixture of Iberian, Indian, African. — 
Calderon. 



NEW WORLD PLAZAS 27 

Not only was the language the same, Spanish, with 
comparatively few dialectic differences, but manners and 
social usage were similar. They have the broad features 
of Spanish character and temperament, the love of so- 
norous phrases, the sensitiveness to friendliness or af- 
front, the sense of personal dignity, steady courage in 
war and the power of patient endurance. — Bryce. 

The Spaniards brought with them to the New World 
the old Latin fondness for town life. Thus the inherited 
contempt for rural life acts like a ball and chain on the 
economic and agricultural advancement of countries. — 
Ross. 

The great mass of country dwellers with aboriginal 
blood, deprived of the strong civilizing influence of a 
higher element, could not progress. — Encine. 

Outside the towns the parents usually are too ignorant 
to recognize the burden of their ignorance and have no 
use for education for their children. — Ross. 

The Spaniard degenerated in the colonies. Idleness 
became his natural condition, lengthy meals and daily 
siestas limited his activities. It seemed as though time 
itself stood still in these quiet cities. There is grey mo- 
notony with its petty quarrels, its indolence, its exag- 
gerated religious rites. A pompous and sensual Catholi- 
cism satisfied the imagination of the Creoles (Spaniards 
born in the New World), the superstition of the Indian 
and the materialism of the negroes. — C alder on. 

One can easily imagine that ancient customs still prac- 
tised in New Mexico are those which came into Spain 
with the Moors, and further back are those of ancient 
Palestine. The threshing floors with the winnowing of 
the grain, the two women grinding at the mill, the great 
water jars carried by the women and the patient burro 



28 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

or Mexican donkey carrying his burden as in the old 
days at Bethlehem. — Sheldon Jackson. 

With the castanets and guitar of Old Spain have come 
the ballads and love songs sung amid the herds on New 
Mexican mountains or on the festal days in New Mexi- 
can plazas. Mingled with remnants of Moorish songs of 
castles and Cids, are plaintive love songs and local epi- 
grams, sung or chanted while the Indian influence has 
given them a minor strain and harsh intonation. — 
Lummis. 

One popular air of Spain would well fit New Mexi- 
can circumstances — can you guess the subject? 

Little I am but everywhere 

Blows and burdens I have to bear; 

Haw-hee. 
That is why my voice of long protest 
Has grown to be bigger than all the rest 

Of me. 

— Translated by Katherine Lee Bates. 

New World Homes. 

The typical house of Spanish America is built of adobe 
or sun-dried brick; where stone is abundant, it is used. 
In every case the walls are completely hidden, within 
and without, by a plaster of mud put on by the bare 
hands of women. 

The evolution of the Mexican home in the larger towns 
is now making toward Americanism. These changes 
bring problems in their wake. New conditions make new 
customs and the theories underlying those customs must 
be taught the Mexicans if they are to be housed with 
oil lamps and heating stoves. 



NEW WORLD PLAZAS 29 

Each member of the average family has an individual 
home-made mattress of wool. At night these are laid 
on the floor or in the patio. In the morning all are 
piled in one bedstead and covered neatly with a spread. 
— Alice Blake. 

I often said, *'Oh, if we could only live as the Mexi- 
cans live, how easy it would be!" For they had their 
fire built between some stones piled in the yard, a piece 
of sheet iron laid over the top; this was the cooking 
stove. A pot of coffee was made in the morning early 
and the family sat on the low porch and drank it and 
ate a biscuit. Then a kettle of frejoles (Mexican brown 
beans) was put over to boil. These were boiled slowly 
for some hours, then lard and salt added and they sim- 
mered down until they were deliciously fit to eat and had 
a thick red gravy. Then the young matron of the house 
would mix the peculiar paste of flour and salt and water 
for tortillas. These were patted out until they were as 
large as a dinner plate and very thin; then thrown on 
to the hot sheet iron where they baked. Each one of the 
family got a tortilla; the spoonful of beans was laid 
upon it and so they managed without the paraphernalia 
of silver and china and napery. Their fare was varied 
sometimes by a little carin seca pounded up and stewed 
with chile verde or chile Colorado (green or red pepper) 
— carin seca is meat cut into thin strips and dried hard 
and brittle in the sun. — Mrs. Summerhay in Vanished 
Arizona. 

Mexican Characteristics. 

Some one may say that 100 years has passed since the 
Spanish rule was practically broken in the New World 



30 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

but 100 years is too short a time in a nation to overcome 
the handicap of three centuries. 

"Mexicans are bound to the past by custom and tradi- 
tion. They display almost no inventive power; there is 
a real want of public spirit which greatly hinders their 
progress. We see many traits favorable to progress — 
they have a fondness for publicity; they take an inter- 
est in political questions; they have a talent for public 
speaking; they are a kindly, friendly and law-abiding 
people." — Alice Hyson. 

The real Mexicans are humble, peaceable, law-abiding 
citizens whose chief fault is lack of ambition. To a 
large extent they devote themselves to common labor, 
railroad construction, etc. 

The Mexican of the peon class is improvident but 
requires little to be contented. He is utterly lacking in 
initiative and seldom rises even to the dignity of a sec- 
tion boss. In all movements looking to his betterment, 
he must be guided, often forced. Though naturally 
docile, the Mexican can be easily roused through igno- 
rance and superstition. — Gregory Mason. 

In many ways the Mexican has become necessary to 
the Southwest. He is there to stay and his numbers 
are increasing. The problem there is to find some means 
by which this dead weight of ignorant unprogressive 
and improvident immigrants can be molded into a pro- 
gressive citizenship. — Gregory Mason. 

There are three typical races in New Mexico beside 
the rapidly growing American group. First the Pueblo 
Indians about nine thousand. Second the ten thousand 
Navajos whose other ten thousand is in Arizona. Last 
of all the Mexicans in-bred and isolation-shrunken 
descendants of the Castilian world finders. — Lummis. 



NEW WORLD PLAZAS 31 

In a number of industries that require unskilled labor, 
notably railroad construction, the Mexican has become 
an important factor. In the last few years, Mexicans 
have entered industries other than railroading. Many 
have become farm laborers and an ever-increasing num- 
ber are now engaged in cotton picking in Texas and 
Oklahoma. Mexicans also form considerable per cent 
of the unskilled labor in mines and road building in the 
South West. — Gregory Mason. 

Mexican Population. 

Prior to 1900 it was a rare thing to find a Mexican 
at a greater distance than 100 miles from the border. 
To-day they are not only common in every State of the 
South West but are found in large numbers as far west 
as California, as far north as Wyoming and as far east 
as Iowa and Kansas. El Paso, Los Angeles, San 
Antonio, Laredo, Brownsville, Albuquerque, are a few 
of the large Mexican centers. — Gregory Mason. 

Statistics of Mexican Population in Census of 1910 

Texas 125,016 California 33,694 

Colorado 2,603 Oklahoma 2,744 

New Mexico 11,918 Kansas 8,429 

Arizona 29,987 Other States 5,412 

Since the census of 1910 was taken vast numbers of 
Mexicans have crossed the border because of war and 
famine in Mexico. The number is estimated from 
300,000 to 800,000. 

Proverbs of the Plaza. 

The wandering knight, Don Quixote, is famed for 
his squire Sancho Panza. And Sancho is famed for his 
Spanish proverbs — most of them the common possession 



32 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

of all lands though put in varied form. The following 

may well be used concerning the New World plazas that 

to-day lie under the Stars and Stripes and concerning 

their dusky Spanish-Indian people. 

Blood is an inheritance, virtue an acquisition. 

What's lost to-day may be won to-morrow. 

Not with whom thou art bred but with whom thou art 

fed. 
Better a good hope than a bad holding. 
When God sends dawn he sends it for all. 



34 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

PROGRAM III 
SUNSHINE IN THE SOUTHWEST. 

Hymn — Hail to the brightness of Zion's glad morning. 

Bible Lesson — God, Thy Light — Isaiah Ix. 18-22. 

Prayer Hymn — Rise on the Shadowed Nations 

Geographical Roll Call — Spanish names in America. 

Marking the Map — What is the South West? 

Where are large Mexican groups in the United 

States? Paragraph, Mexican, Chap. II. 
What Mission school can you locate? 

Reading — The Old Santa Fe Trail — Richard Burton. 

Discussion — How did the Indians adapt the Catholic 
faith to their old customs? — Lowery's Spanish 
Settlements, Prescotfs Conquest of Mexico. 

Stories — What the Bible means to Spanish-Americans. 
— Denominational missionary magazines. 
The Bible in the Saints' Niche — Home Mission 
Monthly, November, 1915 — 156 Fifth Ave., 
N. Y. C. 
Leaflet — ^Our Mexican Churches — Rev. J. H. 
Heald — Cong. H. M. Society — 287 Fourth Ave., 
N. Y. C. 

Sketch — Life of Junipero Serra — Glimpses of Califor- 
nia and the Missions — Helen Hunt lackson. 

Talk — What my own denomination is doing to make 
sunshine in the South West. 

Dish of Chiles (peppers) cut from cardboard or heavy 
paper, after the picture in seed catalogues and 
lightly colored with red or green — a bright little 
incident of the South West pasted on the back. 



CHAPTER III. 

SUNSHINE IN THE SOUTHWEST. 
"The great region known as the Southwest is made up 
of the States of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado 
and CaHfornia." 

"Lands of golden sunshine, 
Lands of turquoise sky. 
Lands where the sands run silver, 
Lands where the opals lie/' 

"Sun, silence and adobe, that is New Mexico in three 
words. Before the Saxon really knew there was a new 
world, it had its own civilization and its little walled 
cities of stone. It is a land of quaint swart faces, of 
Oriental dress and unspelled speech; of polytheism and 
superstition." — Lummis. 

"Near by was an orange tree on which were hanging 
twenty-five hundred ripe and golden oranges. As I sat 
under it, my lap filled with California's golden blossoms 
and golden fruit and canopies of gold over my head, I 
said to myself — Tables are prophesies — The golden 
apples of Hesperides have come true.' " — Helen Hunt 
Jackson. 

"The air, sunny, balmy, dreamy, seductive, making the 
mere being alive a pleasure ; all sorts of fruits and grains 
growing a riot — it is easy to understand the character 
or rather the lack of character of the old Mexican and 
Spanish California." — Helen Hunt Jackson. 

"Man may bask in the sun all the year round, why 
then should he work?" — Spanish Soldier. 

35 



36 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

First Rays of Sunshine. 

Sore need was there in this new land of golden sun- 
shine and golden treasure for those whose golden lives 
were the only true sunshine of God's favor to the 
despoiled and ravaged peoples of the land. 

Unnumbered millions of them were plunged in the 
crassest idolatry, many of their altars were horrible with 
the clotted blood of human victims and their shamans 
and soothsayers kept constant intercourse with demons 
and evil spirits. — Lowery. 

Elaborate heathen ritual or age long pagan customs 
prevailed in the great Aztec civilization while every 
wandering Indian tribe had its own weird religious rites. 
— Even after four hundred years, strange customs and 
superstitions are found in all that conquered world. 

And he concluded with appealing to a higher principle 
by holding out the prospect of extending the empire of 
the Cross over the nations of benighted heathen. — 
Columbus Before Isabella 

From the first days of discovery. Queen Isabella 
neglected no means for furthering the conversion and 
civilization of the heathen through the agency of mis- 
sionaries exclusively devoted to it, who were to establish 
their residence among the natives and win them to the 
true faith by their instructions and the edifying example 
of their own lives. — Prescott. 

And whereas our principal intent in the discovery of 
new lands is that the inhabitants thereof may be brought 
to understand the truths of our Holy Catholic faith 
. . . and this is the chief motive that you are to bear 
and hold in this affair, to this end it is proper that re- 
ligious persons accompany you. — Charles V., 1526. 



SUNSHINE IN THE SOUTHWEST Zl 

The conversion of the natives of the New World to 
the Holy Catholic Faith occupies the chief place in every 
early grant and act of tenure. It also stands first in 
every law enacted for the new territory and in all vice 
regal instructions and reports. — Lowery. 

The Spanish cavalier felt he had a high mission to 
accomplish as a soldier of the Cross. It was not for 
morals he was concerned, it was for the Catholic Church, 
the faith. No doubt was ever entertained of the efficacy 
of conversion, however sudden the change or how violent 
the means. The sword was a good argument when the 
tongue failed. — Prescott. 

Messengers o£ Light. 

Three Mendicant religious orders came to the New 
•World, the Dominicans, Franciscans and Augustinians. 
Those who came in response to the urgent appeal for 
religious service in those earliest days were devoted, self- 
sacrificing, patient and energetic missionaries. The 
Franciscans became by far the most popular and power- 
ful. Shod only with sandals made from the fibre of the 
maguey, with worn sackcloth robes, they endured every 
hardship of the journeys. Their worn robes were un- 
raveled and woven again by the Indians and dyed with 
the blue dye of the country so they might last longer. 
Nor were the Dominicans behind them in austerities and 
self-sacrifice. — Lozvery. 

Interpreters were rare in the land so the preaching in 
Latin did not much avail. Tricky interpreters later on 
discoursed of matters alien to religious truth. 

Sometimes a cross was erected and no instruction 
given. Then the natives worshipped it as a new symbol 
of magic. 



38 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

When there were thousands to be baptized it was diffi- 
cult to secure enough Christian names so the difficulty 
was solved with much originality. All those baptized 
one day were called Peter, the next day John and so on 
for all the Saints. 

It should be remembered that the same nation which 
\ gave birth to the sanguinary and rapacious adventurers 
who perpetrated cruelties, gave birth likewise to the 
early missionaries like Las Casas; men who in a truly 
evangelical spirit braved all kinds of perils and hard- 
ships, even death itself, to ameliorate the condition and 
save the souls of barbarous and suffering nations. 
Theirs was the true chivalry of Spain. — Irving. 

Las Casas. 

Bartholomew Las Casas, born at Seville in 1474, went 
to Hispaniola in 1502 and was an eye-witness of the 
cruelties practised on the Indians. The whole of his life 
until he died at the ripe age of 92 was devoted to en- 
deavoring to ameliorate their sufferings. As a mission- 
ary of the Dominican order, he travelled the wilderness 
of the New World seeking to convert and civilize. He 
was the author of many volumes in their behalf and his 
history of the New World is one of the great sources 
of information for all later historians, though Spain has 
been reluctant to allow its truthful record to be known 
to the world. 
Odonedo. 

Father Odonedo, who accompanied Cortes in his Con- 
quest of Mexico, by his discretion and sagacity, con- 
tributed greatly to the success of the expedition. He 
was a true disciple of Las Casas. If he followed the 
banners of the warriors it was to mitigate the ferocity 



SUNSHINE IN THE SOUTHWEST 39 

of war and turn the triumphs of the Cross to good 
account for the natives themselves. He afforded the 
uncommon example of enthusiasm controlled by reason, 
a quickening zeal tempered by toleration. — Prescott. 

It would form a fascinating chapter could I tell of the 
stirring history of some of the early missions established 
in New Mexico. Missions were established and churches 
built at practically all of the Indian pueblos and also at 
the two Spanish settlements. 

Fray Padilla with Coronado. 

"Beside the brilliant army beloved of serf and lord, 
There walked as brave a soldier as ever smote with 

sword. 
Though naught of knightly harness his russet gown 

revealed, 
The cross he bore as weapon, the missal was his shield. 
Through all their weary marches toward a flitting goal, 
They turned to Fray Padilla for aid of heart and soul. 
He bound the wounds that lance thrusts and flinty 

arrows made. 
He cheered the sick and failing, above the dead he 

prayed. 
His soul still longed for conquest, though not by lance 

and sword. 
He longed to show the heathen the pathway of the Lord." 

— Guiterman. 
New Mexican missions were radically different from 
the California establishments of later years. The friars 
were mere parish priests in charge of Indian pueblos. 
There were no mission estates and no power over tem- 
poral things. The Indians tilled a little piece of ground 
and furnished a few servants. He was in most instances 



40 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

a kind hearted man, friendly to the Indians but accus- 
tomed to inertia. — Bancroft. 

The missions in Texas centered around San Antonio 
where in 1719 a few Franciscan friars made a settle- 
ment. San Jose was founded in 1720, San Juan and San 
Espada in 1731 and Concepcion de la Acuna in 1731. 
The great cathedral of San Fernando was built in 1734. 

The Cross in California. 

With pilgrim staff and pastor's cross the padres strove 
to bring the gospel to the wild and ignorant "Gentiles" 
who roamed and fought and starved between the moun- 
tains and the sea. That was the real beginning of Cali- 
fornia. Mission after mission sprang up by the magic 
of hard work, until there were twenty-one of these great 
establishments linked together by the long trace of the 
king's highway, which ran seven hundred miles from its 
starting point in Sonoma. Around these missions some 
thirty thousand Indians were gathered and taught how 
to live in this world as well as prepare for the next. 
The broad acres were brought under the plow, grape 
vines and fruit trees were planted, the green serranos 
were covered with flocks and herds. The rude native 
crafts of pottery, basketry, skin-dressing and boat- 
building were developed and improved. Weaving and 
carpentry and stone cutting and brick and tile making 
were taught. 

Junipero Serra was a scholar, a dreamer and idealist 
possessed by a single passion — to plant the standard of 
the Cross in California. — Henry Van Dyke. 

Entering the Franciscan order at sixteen in 1728, New 
Spain was from the beginning the goal of his ardent 
wishes, but not until 1749 was he permitted to join the 



SUNSHINE IN THE SOUTHWEST 41 

party of missionaries bound for Mexico. And not for 
another nineteen years was he permitted to join the mis- 
sionary band sent to CaHfornia to estabHsh new missions 
and take over the missions of the Jesuits who had been 
expelled from all Spanish dominions. From 1767 to his 
death in 1784 he was the great dominating spirit of that 
wonderful colonizing experiment, the missions of Cali- 
fornia. 

Shadows. 

The religion of the Indians, like that of the ancient 
Greeks, was of that accommodating kind, which could 
admit within its elastic folds the deities of other religions. 
— Prescott. 

The priests when they were converting the Indian 
natives thought it better not to disturb the ancient 
heathen dances but to transfer them to the church feast 
days, expunging, so far as they could, the more offensive 
features of the dance, though what remains is sufficiently 
repulsive. — Bryce. 

The Roman Catholic Communion has some decided 
advantages over Protestantism for purposes of prosely- 
tism. The dazzling pomp of its service affects the rude 
child of nature and the respect paid to material repre- 
sentations of the Divinity, such as images, crosses and 
emblems, attains the same object. 

The Penitentes. 

The order of Los Hermanos Penitentes (the Penitent 
Brothers) was founded in Spain some 300 years ago. 
The seeds of the order were brought to Mexico and later 
to New Mexico by the Franciscan friars with the Span- 
ish Conquistadores. The first public penance was by 



42 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

Juan de Onate and his men in 1594. It is interesting 
to note that a tribal penance has been a custom among 
the Pueblo Indians from time immemorial. It is certain 
that for over a century there has been in New Mexico an 
order of Penitentes whose credo was founded upon the 
whip and cross as instruments of penance. Up to within 
a decade the order numbered some thousands with fra- 
ternities in towns of every county. Lent is the season 
of activity. Every Friday night during Lent with weird 
music the whippings go on through the lonely mountain 
gorges. It is not until Holy Thursday that the knots of 
fanatics come together in some spot where they have a 
brotherhood house and do their penance by daylight. 
The fifers lead with women singing Penitentes hymns 
and following them come the figures half naked, with 
heads covered with great bags, beating themselves with 
whips or bending under crosses. All day on Good Fri- 
day the pilgrimages continue with beatings and tortures 
until the victim is suspended to the cross and left for a 
time for his sacrificial penance. — Lummis. 

The Gloom Overcasts the Sunshine. 

In all the Spanish countries the church had trodden 
down the laity, making devotion consist in absolute sub- 
mission. . . . The ministers of religion ceased not 
only to rouse the soul but to supply a pattern for con- 
duct. The church as a whole lost its hold upon the con- 
science and thought of the best spirits. — Bryce. 

Before 1750 the padres were charged with culpable 
neglect of their duties as missionaries, notably in their 
failure to acquire the native language or to speak Spanish 
to the Indians, so their religious work had no effect. 

The church was the center of colonial life. The cities 



SUNSHINE IN THE SOUTHWEST 43 

were adorned by her chapels and convents. Property 
became the monopoly of the convents and enormous 
wealth was accumulated. Monotonous devotions, pray- 
ers and futilities fill the hours. The people are oppressed 
by taxes and the Church and State stand together in 
abuses of power. Education of the natives is frowned 
upon and moral standards for the priesthood relaxed. 
The colonist degenerates and stagnates religiously nor 
do the many attempts for political freedom bring any 
religious freedom. — Calderon. 

In 1865 Juarez, Dictator in Mexico, declares : "They 
need a religion which will force them to read not to 
spend their money on candles for saints." 

The Old Santa Fe Trail. 

It wound through strange scarred hills, down canons 

lone 
Where wild things screamed, with winds for company; 
Its mile-stones were the bones of pioneers. 
Bronzed, haggard men, often with thirst amoan. 
Lashed on their beasts of burden toward the sea; 
An epic quest it was of elder years. 
For fabled gardens or for good, red gold, 
The trail men strove in iron days of old. 

To-day the steam-god thunders through the vast. 
While dominant Saxons from the hurtling trains 
Smile at the aliens, Mexic, Indian, 
Who offer wares, keen colored, like their past : 
Dread dramas of immitigable plains 
Rebuke the softness of the modern man; 
No menace, now, the desert's mood of sand ; 
Still westward lies a green and golden land. 



44 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

For, at the magic touch of water, blooms 
The wilderness, and where of yore the yoke 
Tortured the toilers into dateless tombs, 
Lo ! brightsome fruits to feed a mighty folk. 

— Richard Burton. 

Transformation. 

There are two things responsible for the transforma- 
tion of the Southwest — water and education. Of course 
the railroads ushered in the new era, but they got the 
Goddess of Progress on the threshold and left her there. 
Then the Government and individuals began to irri- 
gate and a new world was discovered. Industry and 
commerce have kept pace with agriculture but the most 
remarkable advance and the one that augurs best for the 
future welfare is in education. — Gregory Mason. 

Irrigation. 

While your merchandise is weighing, we will bit and 

bridle and rein 
The floods of the storm rocked mountain and lead them 

down to the plain. 
And the foam ribbed, dark hued waters, tired from that 

mighty race, 
Shall lie at the feet of palm and vine and know their 

appointed place. 
And out of that subtle union, desert and mountain flood 
Shall be homes for a nation's choosing where no home 

else had stood. 

— S harlot Hall. 
Sunshine After Shadows. 

At the close of the Mexican War in 1846 all of the 
Southwest was open to all religious faiths and the first 



SUNSHINE IN THE SOUTHWEST 45 

home missionary entered New Mexico in 1849 in the 
person of W. H. Read, commissioned by the Baptist 
Board. 

In 1850 W. G. Kephart rode a thousand miles in an 
ox cart to reach Santa Fe and open work for the Ameri- 
can Missionary Society. 

In 1850, too, came the Methodists and in 1866 Rev. 
McFarland took over mission property for the Presby- 
terians and founded the boarding school which still 
flourishes. 

In 1863 the Episcopalians also began work for the 
Mexicans. 

There is work now in six States under seven denomi- 
nations with day schools, boarding schools, industrial 
schools, many Mexican congregations and Sunday 
schools. 

It is hard for the Mexican to "come out." All his 
instincts and customs are against it. Ties of family and 
kin are wonderfully strong and sacred to him. To be- 
come a Protestant he must sever the dearest and most 
sacred relations. It is also hard for one bred in a Mexi- 
can community to "touch not the unclean thing." The 
New Testament standard seems too high and severe to 
him. He has his saints, to be sure, but they are all dead 
ones, to be worshipped, not imitated. He likes Catho- 
licism for its easy morals and its easy expiation. He 
would rather beat himself one day in a year than live 
right every day. — Rev. J. H. He aid. 

Names. 

The names of the children are always startling to the 
stranger. We may enjoy hearing Constancia, Inocencia, 
Providencia or Fidela, but we are amazed to meet scores 



46 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

of little boys named Jesus (pronounced Hay-soos), or 
Juan Bautista. Then there is the occasional name, as 
Gracias a dios (thanks to God), or Serafin. Most chil- 
dren are named for the saint nearest to whose day they 
are born, and celebrate their saint's day, not the day of 
the month of their own birth. For instance, should 
parents decide to name a child born in August, or any 
other month of the year, Antonio, he would not recog- 
nize August as his birth month to be celebrated, but San 
Antonio's Day, January 17th. — Missionary Magazine. 

Education. 

It is not a particularly easy thing for the Mexican 
girls to be helpful and thoughtful for others. Their 
home training and their religious teaching do not implant 
very much of the idea of service. It is more "take" than 
"give" with them, more "be done for" than "do." From 
their point of view it is so much more reasonable to 
expect some one else to do any extra work or particularly 
uninteresting task. In fact, at a simple request for addi- 
tional helpers, the atmosphere sometimes becomes un- 
mistakably murky. 

Lately, however, we have had a most gratifying clear- 
ing up of our moral skies, the cause, a little society 
formed among the girls, called the O. F.'s — Others First. 
The members were chosen from two classes, those who 
would probably make the best O. F.'s, and those who 
were evidently most in need of the O. F. stimulus. The 
foundation stone of the club, as their song states, is "Do 
Something for Somebody Every Day. Otherwise you 
are not an O. F." As a consequence, almost a fourth of 
the school is solemnly bound to at least one daily act of 
kindness. Most of them do far more than that and with 



SUNSHINE IN THE SOUTHWEST 47 

evident pleasure in the doing. All sorts of unique and 
amusing incidents are recounted at the weekly meeting. 
The range of possibilities extends from "buttoning" 
some one who is in danger of being late to breakfast, to 
helping iron, or clean the kitchen kettles, and where the 
big girls lead, the little ones are bound to follow. 
Already they are planning for an H. O. — "Help Others" 
— society, whose deeds shall far outshine those of their 
older sisters. — Esther Buxton. 

The results of the work in the little plaza schools are 
proving to the people in those plazas that the Protestants 
have a greater interest in them and their children than 
has ever been shown by their religious teachers hereto- 
fore. The children who have attended these schools are 
more cleanly and are more respectful and obedient to their 
parents ; they are more intelligent and take greater inter- 
est in religion than the children who are deprived of 
school privileges or have only the advantages, such as 
they are, of the schools under Romish teachers. This 
improvement is no less marked among the people them- 
selves. 

A plaza which has had the service of a mission teacher, 
who has not only taught the children, but has been a true 
missionary in spirit and activity — agoing into the homes 
of the people, helping them to bear their burdens, shar- 
ing with them their sorrows and caring for them in sick- 
ness — has had an uplift which shows itself in more tidy 
homes, better dressed and more refined women, and more 
intelligent, industrious and law-abiding men. The home 
of the mission teacher is the center and soul of the intel- 
lectual and social life of the plaza, and withal one of the 
most potent evangelizing agencies at work among the 
people. A people naturally affectionate, home-loving and 



48 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

peculiarly imitative as are the Mexicans, under the in- 
struction and guidance of these consecrated, wise-hearted 
mission teachers, have become — the men, better farmers, 
better citizens, better husbands and fathers; the women, 
better housekeepers, more devoted mothers and more 
intelligent and economical wives. Even the adobe houses 
have changed in appearance, and the sheep, goats, and 
even the poor, patient, burden-bearing donkeys show the 
results of the more humane treatment of their masters. 
' — Missionary Magazine. 

Most of all I shall remember Ranchos de Taos by its 
orchard — ^an unusual sight up here and so lovely. Just 
waves and clouds of rose and pink and white blossoms 
and lovely tracery of brown branches and pale green 
leaves against a background of the grand mountains — 
gray and blue and purple — the most exquisite thing! 

I shall not forget either that the orchard itself is owing 
to the faith and patience of Miss Alice Hyson (another 
"Johnny Appleseed"), for so many years the beloved 
friend and teacher of the people of Ranchos de Taos. 
When she came here to open a school — I think it was 
one of the first schools for the Mexican children — she 
was not so many years older than we are now. Just 
think of that. 

She was as brave as could be, but was sometimes a 
little homesick, especially as her own home was in a 
leafy country and here when she came there was not a 
single tree to be seen in all the plaza. The people told 
her it was not worth while to plant trees for they would 
not grow, and even if they did, no fruit could ripen. 

Nevertheless Miss Hyson set out both fruit and shade 
trees, and a few. years ago she had to cut down some of 
her shade trees to give more space to the fruit trees, 



SUNSHINE IN THE SOUTHWEST 49 

which had grown very large, and so beautiful. While of 
course this year's harvest is all in the future, we know 
something of what it will be from the delicious preserves 
of last year's fruit. 

Aunt Julia says that even more beautiful than the 
orchard are the fruits of the Spirit seen in the lives of 
the Christians of this plaza. These also are of Miss 
Hyson's planting and watering and God gave the 
increase. — Betty's Travels. 

When the girls leave for vacation they are brimful of 
schemes for plays and entertainments to enliven and 
beautify their home life. They well know the barren- 
ness of it hitherto. The Spanish- Americans are pre- 
eminently fond of home and social life. However, when 
the conversation of the uneducated classes, assembled 
for a social evening, is limited, as it is mainly to a most 
detailed inquiry, by each one present, as to the health 
and welfare of every other person present, and that of 
the honorables, his sisters and his cousins and his aunts, 
there would seem to be room on the program for other 
subjects equally edifying. 

The returning school girls may not be able to transfer 
to their parents and friends much of the book learning 
they have gained, but they soon transform the home and 
community in its social life. — Miss Sawhill. 

Medical Work 

Few of the simple home means, that can be used so 
advantageously for the relief of pain, are known. If a 
little instruction in the daily care of the body could be 
given these people, the results would be far-reaching in 
the future. Nothing seems to be known about antisep- 
tics, and the necessity and value of cleanliness from the 



50 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

standpoint of preventing disease has not been learned by 
the majority. 

The opportunity for medical work among the Mexi- 
cans is present everywhere. In the districts lying 
twenty-five or thirty miles distant from the centers of 
population the people are too poor to afford medical 
attention. These districts comprise populations ranging 
from two hundred to one thousand, where there are no 
physicians, hence many die without the attention of 
physician or nurse. 



God Thy Light. 

Written by a Menaul boy to his teacher: 

"I am sorry to tell you that my Bible is out of me. 
One of my friends went to Kansas and he took it with 
him; and I could say nothing to him, because he was 
very much affectionate to the reading of it, and believe it, 
too. But I am going to send for another one." 

Another thing I can't get over is the earnest way the 
Bible is studied in these schools, and the difference in the 
plazas where it has been studied for 'some time. I don't 
want to be irreverent — the Indians in our Indian Mis- 
sion schools taught me not to be — but when I see the 
dark, windowless, little adobe houses in the Bibleless 
plazas, and the bright, shining glass windows in the 
plazas where our missionaries have taught the Bible, I 
always think of that verse in the Psalms, "The entrance 
of Thy word giveth light," and I know that light shines 
even more brightly in the hearts of these boys and girls — 
for I can see it beaming out from their faces. — Betty's 
Travels. 



SUNSHINE IN THE SOUTHWEST 51 

Bright sun of freedom gild valley and mountain, 
Each sacred hilltop by heroes' feet trod, 
Till rock and river re-echo the story, 
Saved to the nation and saved unto God. 

— Ida Vose Woodbury. 



52 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

PROGRAM IV 
CUBA— THE PEARL OF THE ANTILLES. 

Hymn — O Highly Favored People, 



Bible Lesson — Deuteronomy iv. 33-40. 
Prayer of St. Augustine — I behold how some things 
pass away that others may replace them, but Thou 
dost never depart, O God, my Father, supremely 
good. Beauty of all things beautiful. 
The Map of Cuba and what it shows. 
Three Questions in Cuban History: 

Why did the Cubans revolt against Spain? — 
Paragraphs on Revolution and Spanish-Amer- 
ican War. 
Why did the Cubans lose respect for the Catholic 
Church? — Advance in the Antilles — Chapter IV. 
Why did the Cubans suspect the United States 
when it intervened ? — Old Spain in New Amer- 
ica — Chapter IV. 
A Day in Havana — An imaginary sightseeing trip. 
Secure folders from steamship company and look 
up recent magazine articles. 
Recitation — The Palm — with introduction applying it 

to Cuba. — J. G. Whittier. 
Guitar or Mandolin Music. 

Unpleasant Things in Cuba — Ten brief facts, viz., 
poor roads, gambling, few schools, dirty kitchens, 
etc. 
Pleasant Places in Cuba: 

El Cristo — Leaflet — American Baptist Home 
Mission Society — 2060 Vernon Ave., Chicago. 
Candler College. 

Guines School — Leaflet — Woman's Board of 
Home Missions, 156 Fifth Ave. 
Dish of Sweets — Each one to tell some sweet fact about 
Cuba as the sweet cake or candy is taken. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE PALMS OF CUBA. 

''First among the beautiful trees of Cuba are the 
palms, some twenty-six varieties of which give shade, 
food and life. At the head of these stands the royal 
palm, a tree peculiar to the island. It is a marvel of 
beauty and utility and is the most common of all trees in 
Cuba. It is met with almost everywhere. On the plains 
it forms delicious groves of shade and on the distant 
mountains it may be seen rearing its plumed crest against 
the sky, while in the valley below its dark leaves murmur 
softly in cadence with the winding river over which they 
sway." — Robert Hill. 

"Large sugar brakes on every hand 
And yoked ox in field and lane, 
Bright orange groves and royal palm 
And thatched roof huts, hid in the cane." 

"We might believe the island was originally a forest of 
palms, wild limes and orange trees." — Humboldt. 

"The royal palm is a figure of majesty and beauty. It 
is usually from sixty to eighty feet high at maturity and 
not infrequently reaches one hundred feet, the tall trunk 
slightly swelling near the middle and tapering at either 
extremity. The upper portion is a fresh and shining 
green contrasting with the lower section which is light 
in color. It is crowned by a tuft of branches and leaves 
at its apex." — Ballon. 

"It well was called the blessed tree." 

53 



54 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

Cuba and Her Names. 

The island of Cuba was discovered by the great Gen- 
oese pilot on the 28th day of October, 1492. Columbus 
first named the island Juanoa in honor of Prince John. 
Afterward the king named it. Fernandina. This was 
changed to Santiago and finally to Ave Maria; but the 
aboriginal name has never been lost — Cuba being the old 
Indian name for the island. — Ballon. 

Its beauty and the affection of its dwellers have given 
it many other titles. The Pearl of the Antilles, the Key 
to the Caribbean, the green-girdled isle, lost Atlanta's 
daughter, most beauteous Carib isle, are some of these 
endearing terms, while in deference to its allegiance to 
Spain when Mexico threw off the yoke in 1821, the 
Spanish Government always addressed Cuba as "our 
ever loyal isle," and "Fairest emerald in our crown." 

Position. 

Cuba is strategically the key to the Gulf of Mexico 
where the Mississippi Valley terminates facing the 
Caribbean Sea and the Panama Canal. — Coolidge. 

In strategic position as regards proximity to the 
American and Mexican seaboards, Cuba is by far the 
most important of the Great Antilles. 

Havana — 1,413 miles from New York. 

475 miles from New Orleans. 
130 miles from Yucatan. 
96 miles from Key West. 

—Hill 

Cuba is about the size of New York State and is about 
the length of California or Italy. 

Cuba's area is about 45,000 square miles. 



^ 



THE PALMS OF CUBA 55 

Cuba has numerous harbors with excellent anchorage. 
The entire coastline of Cuba with inlets and bays is over 
6,800 miles. , : 

A labyrinth of reefs, islets and keys fringe the shores 
of Cuba. In many of these, springs of pure water bub- 
ble up from the deep. 

It is the most beautiful island that eyes ever beheld, 
full of excellent ports and profound rivers. — Journal of 
Columbus. 

Everywhere rains are most abundant in summer from 
May to October. The average number of rainy days in 
the year is 102. There is one record of snow falling in 
Cuba, in 1856. 

Products. 

When one treads the fertile soil arid beholds the clus- 
tering fruits in such abundance, the citron, the star-apple, 
the perfumed pineapple, the luscious banana and other 
fruits for which our language has no name, not forget- 
ting the noble woods which caused Columbus to exclaim 
with pleasure, and to mention the palm and the pine 
growing together, we are struck with the thought of how 
much Providence and how little man has done for this 
Eden of the Gulf. 

Other fruits are mango, zapota, fig, lemon, orange, 
breadfruit, pomegranate, tamarind. — Ballon. 

The principal products of Cuba are sugar, tobacco, 
coffee, bananas, corn, oranges and pineapples. 

Sugar cane was brought to Cuba from the Canary 
Islands with the first colonists and in 1595 the first sugar 
plantation was established. The Cuba sugar lands are 
the most fertile of the world. The yield for 1915-16 
was over 3,180,000 tons. 



56 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

Tobacco, indigenous to Cuba and the United States, 
is a great source of revenue, yielding in 1915 $32,000,000. 
The Cuban leaf is ranked as the finest known and fur- 
nishes royalty with its famous brands of cigars. There 
are dozens of large factories in Cuba, employing thou- 
sands of people. — Hill. 

The cocoanut palm supplies milk, shade and material 
for a hundred domestic uses. It grows in luxuriant 
thriftiness all over the island. 

The ceiba, or silk cotton, next to the palm, is the most 
remarkable of trees. The negroes have a superstition 
that it is a magic tree haunted by spirits. The great 
Peace Tree at San Juan Hill, made famous by the Span- 
ish-American War, is a ceiba. 

There are no venomous reptiles in Cuba. The insect 
life is abundant and beautiful. The little cocuyo or 
firefly is caught and confined in little wicker cages and 
its light is as brilliant as a small candle. 

The parrot is Cuba's most conspicuous bird. 

Cuban People. 

The population of Cuba in 1915 was 2,494,104. Cuba 
is distinctly an island of Spanish traditions and even 
to-day its largest immigration is Spanish. Cuba has a 
large and powerful black and mulatto race to be dealt 
with and the Spanish laws granted him full rights of 
citizenship. There is very little race prejudice or draw- 
ing of the color line. 

To live awhile in a Cuban village is like stepping back 
to some old world period of time. There is no hurry 
or worry of an electric nineteenth century, but much 
simple kindness and unaffected hospitality. The people 
may be pitifully poor, but never too poor to share. 



THE PALMS OF CUBA 57 

Their faults are of a primitive order and due to impulse 
and lack of training — not to cultured selfishness. Those 
untutored people taught me many lessons and I am 
grateful to them, and am hoping for them that there may 
come the manifold blessings of the Kingdom, even 
through their little ones. — Helen Manatt. 

Cubans are much attached to family life and deep 
affection exists among the members of families. The 
Cuban mother is affectionate but over indulgent. Cuban 
hospitality is proverbial. — Porter. 

Cuban women are noted for beauty and charm, but 
the majority of them lack education or opportunity for 
any development of character or occupation. House- 
keeping is conducted in a most indolent fashion. The 
foremost word in the dictionary of life for Cubans seems 
pleasure. There is a mania for gambling, encouraged by 
the lottery drawings. — Grose. 

Changes. 

What changes are taking place in Cuba ! The old and 
the new seem so oddly mixed that we often stop to won- 
der. Sugar cane is hauled by oxen in the old-fashioned 
way to a mill that is run entirely by electricity and has 
all the modern conveniences. A country family comes 
riding into town, the mother and young children on 
horseback with the father walking by their side ; on their 
way they meet their friends on motor cycles or in auto- 
mobiles, and on special days they have the privilege of 
seeing an airship sailing above them. 

If they wish a longer trip they will take advantage 
of the interurban electric line, but so little used are they 
to the customs of modern traveling that they will carry 
with them in the car a pair of nice live chickens or a 



58 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

little "squealy" pig, as a gift to the friends they are to 
visit. 

Candles have rapidly given way to electric lights; 
Pianos can be heard on every side, but an organ or a 
melodeon is a thing unknown. 

There seem to have been no stages of development, 
but one quick jump from the things that, to an Ameri- 
can, seem very old-fashioned, to the most modern. 

The other day I met a middle-aged married woman 
two squares away from her home and alone. On seeing 
me she expressed her delight in having company the rest 
of the way, for she explained that she had never before 
been so far from home without someone with her! But 
it is becoming common now to see girls going to and 
from school without a companion. Is the change too 
great? — Beulah Wilson. 

Cuban History. 

1511 — First colony under Velasquez. 

1524 — First slaves of the New World brought to Cuba. 

1551 — Havana becomes capital. 

1762 — Invaded and conquered by English. 

1763 — Returned to Spain. 

1848 — ^Chinese coolies brought to Cuba. 

1869 — Slavery abolished. 

1829, 1844, 1868-1878— Rebellion against Spain. 

1898 — American Intervention. 

1902 — Cuban Republic established. 

— McClean. 

Cuba became the headquarters of the Spanish power 
in the West. It was hence that Cortes embarked for the 
conquest of Mexico. 



THE PALMS OF CUBA 59 

The natives were at once made subject by the new- 
comers who reduced them to abject slavery, and proving 
hard taskmasters, the poor creatures perished until they 
had nearly disappeared. Then commenced the slave 
trade of the West Indies. — Ballon. 

Bad as slavery is at the best, there was in Cuba prob- 
ably the worst system known. In it, as in the episodes 
of the conquest, was shown the thread of ferocity that 
runs through the warp and woof of Spanish character. 
— Porter. 

The treatment of the Chinese coolies imported in large 
numbers after the slaves were freed, was as cruel as that 
meted out to the African. After an investigation the 
Chinese government forbade further emigration to Cuba. 
— Porter. 

It was Chief Hatney of Cuba who made the memor- 
able reply, more eloquent than a volume of invective, 
when urged at the stake to embrace Christianity that his 
soul might find admission to heaven, he asked if white 
men would go there. Being answered in the affirmative, 
he exclaimed, "Then I will not be a Christian for I would 
not go to a place where I find men so cruel." — Las Casas. 



Rulers. 



Cuba was ruled by a military despotism from the very 
outset. The Captain General was the ruler, a viceroy of 
Spain accountable only to the sovereign. His rule was 
absolute. He had the power of life and death in his 
hands. As a rule the Captain General came to Cuba a 
poor man and returned a rich one no matter how brief 
his term of office. In 387 years Cuba had 136 rulers. 
From 1859-1897 there were 3S.— Ballon. 



60 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

Revolutions. 

Liberal ideas and discontent began to influence Cuba 
as she saw the example of Mexico and South America 
throwing off the Spanish yoke and realized the increas- 
ing greatness of the United States. 

Three factors contributed to Cuba's frequent protests 
and revolts: 

1. Undue trade restriction. 

Colonial trade confined to one port at a time in 
Spain and one in Cuba — Seville, Cadiz — Santi- 
ago, Havana. 

2. Arbitrary taxation — leading to corruption and 
abuses, and taxes on food, on recreation, enor- 
mous burdens upon citizens. 

3. Retention of all government and political of- 
fices in the land by Spaniards to the exclusion 
of Cubans. — Robinson. 

Spanish-American War. 

Spain learned nothing by experience and her govern- 
ment of her last remaining islands was marked by the 
same greed, arrogance and cruelty that had deprived her 
of her other possessions. 

As the nearest neighbor the United States was again 
and again brought into unpleasant relations with Spain. 

The miserable unsanitary conditions of the island 
made the land a breeding spot of yellow fever and other 
menacing epidemics. All business interests and indus- 
tries suffered under the continuous warfare. Added to 
this, under General Weyler, arose the brutal and medie- 
val method of slow starvation of non-combatants in con- 
centration camps. 



THE PALMS OF CUBA 61 

Unfortunate political incidents and the destruction of 
the battleship Maine in Havana harbor finally in 1898 
brought on the Spanish-American War. — Elhridge 
Brooks. 

In the name of humanity, in the name of civilization, 
in behalf of American interests which give us the right 
and duty to speak, the war upon the helpless in Cuba 
must stop. — McKinley. 

January 1, 1899 the Stars and Stripes floated over 
Cuba only to yield to the flag of a single star when the 
Cuban Republic was formed in 1902. 

Cuba is now governed by a Constitution modelled 
after that of the United States. 

Cuba's Church. 

Perhaps one of the most vital clauses in that docu- 
ment is the one granting religious freedom and stating, 
"The Church shall be separated from the State, which 
shall in no case subsidize any religion." In the days of 
Spanish rule, church and crown were one. In Cuba as 
in Spain the Catholic Church was against freedom of 
worship. The Church opposed civil marriages, Cubans 
were not admitted to the priesthood. Church fees were 
mercilessly exacted. The priests represented to the 
people, cupidity, ignorance, immorality and indifference 
to their holy office. — Pepper. 

Cuba was steeped in superstition, ignorance, indiffer- 
ence. Illiteracy and immorality, insincerity and insta- 
bility speak in unmistakable terms of the false moral 
teaching of the Romish Church. 

United States in Cuba. 
The civilizing work of the United States has been ad- 



62 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

mirable. Two years of endeavor extirpated the yellow 
fever which had prevailed in Havana since 1726. The 
Yankees fought the mosquitoes, the vehicles of the dis- 
ease, and their sanitary works and measures decreased 
the death rate from 91 3-10 per cent per 1,000 in 1898 
to 20 6-10 per cent in 1902. They attacked malaria and 
tuberculosis. 

The Yankees opened up new roads, knowing how far 
the prosperity of the island depended upon them. They 
installed modern schools in the old Spanish school 
houses and built special schools, kindergartens and tech- 
nical colleges in larger towns. New pedagogic methods 
and a wider culture strongly modified social and political 
life. The Americans left ten times as many schools as 
they found. — Calderon. 

Cuban Awakening. 

The national educational plans of Cuba are constantly 
extending schools into new territory. It has been a long 
and a difficult process to furnish schools for all the peo- 
ple in a country lacking educational leaders, but the 
schools have been built up on the foundations laid at the 
time of the American occupation. In 1915 the Secretary 
of Public Instruction reported 289,692 children in public 
schools, a large increase in six years. A few teachers' 
institutes exist; there is one national normal school, but 
several are needed; and in 1915 twenty-nine new school 
houses were erected, making a total of 4,011, having 
4,111 teachers. 

There are still a great many children in Cuba who are 
denied the privilege of an education by public, private or 
mission school. The national government is carrying out 
a program for increased equipment and the better train- 



THE PALMS OF CUBA 63 

ing of teachers ; and while the department is not as thor- 
oughly organized nor as efficiently administered as some 
others, there is a constant annual growth in extension and 
efficiency. The awakening of the Cubans as a result of 
the educational progress is most noticeable. The visitor 
is conscious of it as he sees the daily, weekly and monthly 
periodicals in English and Spanish, and as he discovers 
the annual increase of books and magazines which are 
being sold to Cubans through book stores and news- 
stands. — Advance in the Antilles. 

A Pioneer Worker — In the history of beginnings 
must always be included the story of Don Alberto 
J. Diaz, the first Cuban missionary to his own people, 
and the founder of the First Baptist Church in Cuba in 
1886. His life story and success are tributes to the help 
of women in the evangelization of Cuba. The first fruit 
of his work was a little child, his four-year-old sister, 
who listened eagerly to his words when the other mem- 
bers of his family scorned him and his mother refused 
to speak to him for months. The little sister crept up 
to his side, and looking up into his face, said: "I like 
the man you talk about so much; I will give Jesus my 
heart." When his mother finally yielded and Diaz led 
her into the baptismal water, his joy so overcame him 
that he forgot the customary formula, and looking up- 
ward said with infinite tenderness, "Lord Jesus, this is 
my mother!" — Mrs. D. B. Wells. 

Cuba Para Cristo. 

Dating from the close of the Spanish- American War, 
various American EvangeHcal Churches began sys- 
tematic missionary work. The agencies employed have 
been colporterage preaching. Sabbath and day schools. 



64 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

The first places to be occupied were the six provincial 
capitals and from these the work has spread until now 
every center of importance has its chapel and Sabbath 
school. All the denominations have flourishing day 
schools. Young People's Societies abound and their del- 
egates meet annually in a convention which does much 
to elevate the character of the work. — Tourist Guide. 

Over 300 delegates representing the Christian En- 
deavor Societies and Sunday Schools of Cuba met re- 
cently in Havana. The watchword of the Convention 
was "Cuba para Cristo" (Cuba for Christ). This 
thought echoes through all the churches on the island. 

— McClean. 



Cuba in the United States. 

The Rev. Desideric Carrera, formerly a Cuban cigar 
maker, is working as a colporteur of the Bible Society 
among the cigar makers of Tampa and Key West. It 
is a difficult and dangerous occupation. In Tampa there 
are 15,000 Cubans, 9,000 Spaniards and 12,000 Italians. 
In Key West about 10,000 Cubans are engaged in cigar 
industries. These people are anti-clericals and alienated 
from all religion. Readers are employed to read to 
them while they work. Much of the literature read is 
corrupt. There is hardly a more spiritually needy com- 
munity in the United States. — Record of Christian Work. 

West Tampa, Florida, is a little Cuba, for of her 10,- 
000 inhabitants only 1,500 are Americans, the rest are 
Cubans, Spaniards and Italians. They have come over 
here to work in the cigar factories, for the cigar industry 
is the basis of prosperity for the city. The factories open 
at six in the morning and close at five in the afternoon 



THE PALMS OF CUBA 65 

and the workers are compelled to sit in rooms heated with 
steam so the tobacco leaves may not be broken. 

Day Schools. 

There are 2,500 children of school age and the public 
school provides for only 250. For eleven years a many 
sided work has been developed by several Protestant 
churches. Through the church, the parish schools and 
Home School for boys and girls, classes and clubs. All 
their devoted missionaries in the variety of their work 
seem to have deserved the title applied to one of them, 
^'Consecrated Odd-Job Expeditor." — Church Reports. 

The United States still owes many neighborly duties 
to Cuba — the duty of affectionate understanding of 
Cuba's ways and peoples, the duty of patience with her 
imperfect governmental schemes, the duty of helping her 
economic difficulties. Above all the United States must 
be a good neighbor in the things of the spirit, in the train- 
ing of Cuba's fascinating children, in the opening of 
vision and usefulness for Cuba's beautiful daughters, in 
the planting of stronger moral values in Cuba's sons 
— and above all in the love of that Christ who laid down 
the law, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." 

**Softly they murmur, the palm and the pine 
Hushed is our strife in the land of the free 
Over our children their branches entwine 
Thrones of the continent, isles of the sea." 

— Holmes. 



66 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

PROGRAM V 
PORTO RICO— THE LAND OF THE RICH PORT 

Processional Hymn with American Flags carried by 

the leaders — ^Our Flag Is Flashing Near and Far. 

Bible Subject — The Isles of the Sea. 

Prayer — "Let me serve a little better 

Those that I am striving for, 
Let me strive a little harder 
To be all that I should be. 
Let me be a little meeker 
With the brother that is weaker. 
Let me think more of my neighbor 
And a little less of me." 

Three Journeys to Porto Rico — Five minutes each. 

1. Columbus, 1493 — Middledyk's History of 
Porto Rico. 

2. Sir Francis Drake, IS9S— Middle dyk. 

3. Mr. and Mrs. Today — Steamship folder. 
Questions to Ask Travellers: 

What is a patio? 

What do they eat in Porto Rico? 

What is a sugar central? What is anemia? 
Reading — "My American Visitors" — Page 150, page 

168 — American Bride in Porto Rico. 
Two Papers — What Spain Gave Porto Rico — Refer to 

Old Spain in New America, chapter V. 

What the United States is trying to give Porto 
Rico — Pamphlet Congregational Missionary 
Work, A.M. A., 287 Fourth Ave. 

Missionary Visits: 

To an orphanage. To a hospital. 

To a school. To a country service. 

Closing Hymn — "They Are Coming, Lord, to Thee." 



CHAPTER V. 

PORTO RICAN PATIOS. 

"What is a patio? Answer, pray, 
Ye who all the livelong day, 

Hear a fountain rise and fall. 
Hear the birds to each other call. 
See the flowers and the bright hued vine 
Over the walls of the patio climb. 

What is a patio? It is a space 
Far from the street or market place. 
Open above to the stars and sky. 
Open above to the winds going by. 
What is a patio? Ye who roam. 
It is the heart of our tropic home. 

What is a patio? Answer, pray, 

Ye who all of the livelong day 

Toil in the noisome muck and mire. 

Filth on the ground and wet clothes higher ; 

Windows none and a noisome smell 

In each dark room where a family dwell. 

Dozens of rooms from each foul court, 
The only spot for life or sport; 
Hundreds of children who never know 
How up above the sweet stars go. 
What is a patio? You can tell. 
It is the heart of their life as well. 



68 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

Bright isles of sunshine — in this new day, 
'Neath a new banner and 'neath a new sway; 
May we who query help thee to live 
Open to all that the great Love can give, 
Sweet stars and sunshine with cleansing winds met 
■Fountains of life in thy patios set." 

"A tier of rooms on each side of a square, comprising 
as many as the convenience of the occupant may re- 
quire encompass an open patio or court, open to the sky 
and with but one door opening into the street. Some- 
times this door is large enough for the family carriage." 

— Ladd. 

"The patio was filled with flowers and singing birds 
and the plashing fountain shed coolness in the air. It 
was the center of the family life and even the mild eyed 
pony could look into the happy enclosure from his own 
retired quarters at one corner." 

"A^view of these patios gives impressions that cannot 
be forgotten. An inner court perhaps forty or fifty feet 
long and fifteen or twenty feet wide; several lines filled 
with clothes that have just been hung up to dry; a num- 
ber of dirty naked babies; odors of all kinds; the fetid 
atmosphere caused by filth, on the ground and by the 
crowd of inhabitants of the patio. These are merely 
suggestions of the squalor and abject poverty of thou- 
sands who live in the patios of the city slums in Porto 
Rico." — Fowles. 

"The patios of the cities are simply indescribable. The 
only relief is that there is no suffering from cold." 

— Grose. 



PORTO RICAN PATIOS 69 

History. 

The ancient name of this island was Borinquen — "The 
Land of the Vahant Lord" — and it was inhabited by the 
Carib Indians. Porto Rico means "Rich Port," and was 
the name given by the Spanish conquerors. Columbus 
landed in 1493 at Aguidilla on the north shore. The 
fourth centenary of that event was commemorated in 
1893 by the erection on a granite pedestal of a marble 
column crowned with a Latin cross — on the pedestal is 
the inscription "1493 — 19th of November — 1893." 

The history of Porto Rico falls naturally into eight 
divisions : 

Discovery, 1493. 
Settlement, 1508-1509. 
Subjugation, 1509-1544. 
Dark Centuries, 1544-1815. 
Colony, 1850-1870. 
Province, 1870-1895. 
^■**-- Awakening, 1895-1898. 

American Occupation, 1898. — Barnes. ^ 

Geography. 

The island of Porto Rico, situate in the Atlantic 
Ocean, is about 1,420 miles from New York, 1,000 miles 
from Havana, 1,200 miles from Panama, 3,180 miles 
from Cadiz, Spain. 

It is about 104 miles in length by 34 miles in average 
breadth and has an area of 2,970 miles. With the ad- 
joining islands it has over 3,600 miles area. 

By its geographical position Porto Rico is peculiarly 
adapted to become the center of an extensive commerce. 

So far as temperature is concerned, Porto Rico enjoys 



70 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

perpetual summer. The average daily temperature is 
80° and the mean monthly temperature hardly varies 
6°. Average annual rainfall, 54 inches. — Middledyk. 

The chief cities are San Juan, Ponce, Mayaguez, 
Arecibo, Aguidilla, Fajardo, San German. 

San Juan is the capital and is a beautiful old city built 
in Spanish style. It also has a beautiful harbor, the only 
good harbor in Porto Rico. There are 1,143 kilometers 
of fine roads in the island. Agriculture is almost the sole 
resource of the people. The chief exports are sugar, 
coffee, tobacco, oranges, grape fruit, cocoanuts, pine- 
apples. 

Possessing every variety of tropical landscape, fertile 
from mountain tops to the sea, rich in pasture lands, 
shaded with magnificent palms, moistened by twelve 
hundred streams, its possibilities are immense. — Hill. 

Porto Rico though rich in possibilities is still unused. 

People. 

The greater part of the country people are skiiNwss 
and %iterate. They are content to build a little shack, .^ 
sit down in it and let the bananas ripen and the cocoanuts^ 
fall. There is not a month in the year that does not 
bring a harvest of some kind, so "Sufficient unto the day" 
seems to be their motto. It is ever a mystery how they 
live, so crowded is the island, and extreme poverty is in 
evidence everywhere you go. Porto Ricans have never 
known anything but poverty and ignorance. 

One of the greatest problems in Porto Rico, perhaps 
at the bottom of most of the other problems, is the very 
real fact of grinding, heart rending, starving poverty. 
It is a fact that a great many of the people do not ever 
know what it is to eat a square meal. A piece of bread in 




1 



PORTO RICAN PATIOS 11 

or gold limbs, eyes made of precious stones and num- 
erous articles of great value have been presented to the 
church. The church ornaments are valued at $100,000. 

The church also organizes an annual pilgrimage to this 
shrine. — Fowles. 

Not the least of the wonders wrought by Protestant 
Missions has been the change in the Roman Catholic 
Church. The American Catholic bishop sent to the 
island soon after it came under American control re- 
moved the most corrupt priests. A higher standard of 
morals for the clergy was demanded and the Sisterhoods 
began to care for and teach the poor. — McClean. 

The great day of days to Porto Rican children is Jan- 
uary 6th — Three Kings Day — the day when the three 
wise men came from the East bearing gifts to Jesus. 
The three kings come from Greece, India and Ethiopia, 
the first on a white beast, the second riding a bay and 
the third, a black one. The whole island is filled with 
happy peasants who carry boxes containing images of the 
three kings to whom you are expected to make an offer- 
ing. On the evening of the fifth of January baskets of 
every kind and quality are left on the front doorstep or 
in the garden with hay and water for the horses or 
camels of the three Kings who come in the night myste- 
riously to fill the baskets. — Marion Blythe. 

Protestant Churches. 
Protestant Missions in Porto Rico date from the year 
of the American occupation, 1898. Until that time re- 
ligious liberty was unknown and there was not a single 
native Protestant organization on the island. The first 
building erected after the American occupation was the 
Presbyterian Church in Santurce, a suburb of San Juan. 



78 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

Any study of Porto Rico that fails to take into account 
the mission work of Evangelical churches would be en- 
tirely inadequate. Some histories scarcely mention this, 
one of the greatest forces that have been introduced into 
the island, so they fail to make clear a chief cause of the 
great changes that have occurred. The larger towns were 
fixed as mission centers and from these radiated the 
numerous lines of work. The effect of these centers 
manned by Americans speaking Spanish and teaching a 
strong upright life by precept and example can never be 
properly estimated. — Latin- American Tourist Guide. 

Comity 

Porto Rico is notable because of the arrangement 
made by all denominations conducting religious work in 
the island whereby the large cities were open to all but 
each denomination was given special charge of one sec- 
tion of the island. 

Porto Rico has about 570 churches with 13,250 mem- 
bers, about 20,000 Sunday school pupils, and 2,807 
members of Young People's Societies. There are 60 
ordained missionaries, 65 women missionaries and 210 
native workers. Nine denominations are working in 
Porto Rico. 

Religious Education. 

In addition to the evangelistic activities there has been 
much educational work done. The spirit of union is pop- 
ular; three denominations, Presbyterian, United Breth- 
ren and Congregational, join in the publication of a 
church paper and the work of a Training School for 
native ministers, which is situated at Mayaguez. There 
is one other school of even more inter-denominational 



PORTO RICAN PATIOS 79 

character, the Polytechnic Institute of San German; its 
beautiful location and efficient work merit a visit from 
every tourist in the island. — Latin-American Tourist 
Guide. 

There are about 35 mission day schools with about 
3,000 in attendance. Their main purpose is to co-operate 
with the public schools providing for those in the cities 
who could not attend because of poverty or for the rural 
districts where there was inadequate provision by the 
government. — McClean. 

Our girls in our day schools have no homes or come 
from such bad surroundings that this instruction is their 
only training for a decent respecta^ble life. — Church 
Report. 

The superintendent goes into the patios and gathers 
the children who are too poor to attend the public schools 
— cannot even have shoes or one full garment. — Report. 

I sent my son to your school because I knew the fine 
spiritual character of your teachers and wanted him 
under such precious influences. — A Catholic teacher. 

At El Goto our devoted missionaries have bought and 
refitted a small building and arranged it for a dispensary, 
night school and reading room. The place is always 
crowded and doors and windows often filled with adults. 
We should establish more missions of this kind. 

— Bishop Colmore. 

Social Service. 

There are four hospitals, three orphanages and a Poly- 
technic School under church auspices. The largest hos- 
pital is the Presbyterian Hospital at Santurce, a suburb 
of Sari Juan. 

A fine new concrete hospital is being erected. An at- 



80 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

tendant missionary at clinics and a visiting nurse add to 
its efficiency. 

There can be no question that the work we are doing 
in our nurses' training school is one of the most valuable 
projects we have undertaken in Porto Rico. In strong 
contrast with the relief work which must of necessity oc- 
cupy most of the attention of the hospital force, we have 
in the nurses' training school a prophylactic agency. 
From this institution should go a great many women 
whose training should fit them to preach the gospel of 
preventive medicine. All told we have about sixty grad- 
uates. — Allah en. 

At Humacoa is the Congregational Hospital, at Ponce 
the large Episcopalian Hospital of St. Luke. 

The George O. Robinson Orphanage at Santurce in its 
fifteen years of existence has done a beautiful and 
blessed work for the orphan girls of Porto Rico and has 
returned fruit a thousandfold to the Methodist women of 
the United States whose gifts make it possible. 

The Blanche Kellogg Institute at Santurce is a notable 
example of successful application of settlement ideas to 
Porto Rican conditions and renders a large social service 
in clubs, classes, Bible classes and temperance instruction. 

The Marina Mission at Mayaguez also conducts suc- 
cessful industrial work, community classes and training 
of leaders, while a day nursery meets the needs of the 
poor mothers with little children who must work every 
day. 

We can never build here a great land but we can build 
here a great people fitted for a great Christian service 
to all the Spanish-speaking world that borders on the 
Caribbean Sea. So the rainbows on its opal waters may 
be the bows of promise set in Southern skies. 



82 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

PROGRAM VI 
THE NEW WORLD AND THE OLD 
Hymn — We've a Story to Tell to the Nations. 
Bible Lesson — Christ's Ambassadors — II. Cor. v. 17-20. 
Prayer — "But Father, if I feel, may I not pray 

That Thou would'st turn their darkness into day? 
Beneath their load they struggle to walk straight 
O God, reach out Thy hand and lift the weight. 
Pray? Yes; but ere thou ask of me my gift 
Go, seize their heavy burden, child, and lift." 

— Alva Kerr. 
Roll Call — ^Great inventions, books or foods given by 

the New World to the Old. 
Reading — Return of Columbus from the New World — 

Chapter VL, Irving's Life of Columbus. 
Questions : 

Why should there be unity of purpose in the 
twenty-one American Republics ? — Paragraph 
Unity of Aim. 
What political ideals can the New World give the 

Old ? — Paragraph Gifts of the Mind. 
How can the New World help reconcile the Old? 

Paragraph Duty of Giving. 
How does Home Missions help Foreign Missions? 
General Discussion on three lines: 

What did I like best in this study book? 
What have I learned? 
How can I help? 
A Dish of Gifts — For each one a tiny mite box with a 
penny in it to start some gift for Spanish-Ameri- 
can work. Set date for return of same. 



CHAPTER VI. 
WHAT THE NEW WORLD GIVES THE OLD. 

"O America, because you build for Mankind, I build 
for you!" — Walt Whitman. 

"Earth's races look to thee 
The peoples of the world 
Thy risen splendors see 
And thy wide flag unfurled. 

Float high and be the sign 
Of love and brotherhood, 
The pledge, by right divine 
Of Power, to do good." 

— Venahle. 

"For all mankind that unstained scroll unfurled 
Where God might write anew the story of the world." 
— E. E. Hale, concerning Columbus. 

"Haply the lifeless cross I know — Europe's dead cross — 
may bud and blossom there." 

— Prayer of Columbus — Whitman. 

The First Gifts. 

The admiral (Columbus) did not delay long at Palos 
after his landing, being desirous of presenting himself 
before his sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella. He took 
with him specimens of the multifarious objects of the 
newly discovered regions. He was accompanied by sev- 
eral of the native islanders arrayed in their simple bar- 
baric costumes and decorated with collars, bracelets and 

83 



84 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

other ornaments of gold, rudely fashioned. He ex- 
hibited also masses of the same metal in dust or crude 
form, numerous vegetable exotics and several kinds of 
quadrupeds and birds unknown in Europe. The latter 
with their brilliant plumage gave a brilliant effect to the 
pageant. 

One lump of gold was of sufficient magnitude to be 
fashioned into a holy church vessel to contain the host, 
thus converting the first fruits of the New World to 
pious uses. — Prescott. 

Gifts o£ the Field. 

It has been the honor of America to contribute to the 
world its greatest crop in point of yield — ^^the white 
potato. Making its bow to civilization from Peru the 
potato has girdled the globe. 

Another native of America that has now favor in 
every part of the world is the pineapple, growing in 
tropical and sub-tropical regions. 

Vanilla is made from the fruit of a climbing orchid, 
a native of tropical America but now grown in Java, 
Ceylon and other parts of the Orient. 

Lima beans came from South America. — National 
Geographic Magazine. 

Corn came to us from the Indians and was found by 
the Europeans from Chile to the St. Lawrence. — Hum- 
boldt. 

It is said Mexican cornfields in normal times outrank 
Mexican gold mines. To-day the United States produces 
two-thirds of the world's supply of corn. — Enock. 

The companions of Columbus on his first voyage 
found what has since been known as tobacco. On Octo- 
ber 27, 1492, the ships of Columbus anchored ofif the 



WHAT THE NEW WORLD GIVES THE OLD 85 

shores of a great land, supposed to be the Kingdom of 
the Khan. Here, in the island now called Cuba, they 
found many strange things. Among them natives with 
firebrands in their hands and puffing smoke from mouths 
and noses. The herb bore several names but tabago or 
tobaco seemed to be the most general. It was really the 
name of the pipe which the natives used in smoking. 

It was not till 1560 that the herb became known in 
Spain and not till 1586 that it was used in Europe, when 
Ralph Lane, Governor of Virginia, sent over by Sir 
Walter Raleigh, returned and smoked the first pipe in 
England. — Porter. 

There exists a legend relative to the Christian inhabi- 
tants of the East that they believed the banana to be the 
tree of the source of good and evil. Beyond all doubt 
this legend had some influence on the minds of early 
botanical classifiers who designated two species of the 
plant Musa paradisiaca and Musa sapientium — Fruit of 
Paradise, Fruit of Knowledge. The origin of the banana 
is given as India. Natural to Africa and Asia, there is 
also a strong tradition of at least two species cultivated in 
America long before the coming of the Europeans. — 
National Geographic Magazine. 

Rubber was the gift of Latin America to the world. 
The Spaniards when they arrived in Mexico found the 
natives playing a national game of tennis with rubber 
balls in the great stone built tennis courts which are 
among the archaeological wonders of Central America. — 
Enock. 

The wild turkey was the progenitor of the domestic 
bird Mexico gave to Europe. 

True mahogany is distinctly a native of tropical 
America. The first mention of it occurs shortly after 



86 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

the discovery of the New World when Cortes and his 
companions between the years 1521 and 1540 employed 
it in the construction of ships. In 1597 Sir Walter 
Raleigh found it excellent to repair his ships in the West 
Indies. — National Geographic Magazine. 

Gifts of the Mind. 

Each nation is in the long run judged and valued by 
the rest of the world by its contribution to the world's 
stock of thought, of literature, of art. — Bryce. 

Is not that nation great which can learn that it is giv- 
ing which makes a nation great, as it is giving and serv- 
ing which makes men noble? National greatness con- 
sists in those things which make men great; goodwill, 
helpfulness, service, leadership into higher ways. 

A new spirit of altruistic helpful service has come 
even into nations. It is the spirit of the Gospel. In 
contrast to it read the answer of the African natives to 
the missionary: 

"Never since the Zambesi ran into the sea was such a 
thing dreamed of, as that we should make a road for 
other people to walk on." — Frederick Lynch. 

For the world of to-day is a product not only of the 
past. In a measure it is controlled and shaped by our 
interest in the world of to-morrow. — Franklin Giddings. 

April 23, 1916, was not only Shakespeare's tercen- 
tenary, but also that of the great Spanish writer Cer- 
vantes. In honor of this event his house in Valladolid, 
Spain, was purchased and restored "to renew faith in 
the great destinies of the Spanish people," 

The Marques de La Vega Irclan in his account of the 
restoration said: 

"Not all the investigations or good intentions or 



WHAT THE NEW WORLD GIVES THE OLD 87 

enthusiasm would have restored this house had it not 
been for the active effort of the King of Spain and the 
co-operation of the President of the Hispanic Society of 
New York, Mr. Archer Huntington." 

Unity of Aim in the Nev^^ World. 

The medal commemorative of the second Pan Ameri- 
can Scientific Congress in 1916 represents two figures 
clasping hands across the outstretched continents while 
the inscription reads — Friendship, Solidarity and Prog- 
ress through Scientific Achievement. 

There can be no true American ideals in social welfare 
without the contributions and co-operation of all the 
American peoples. The most impressive thing about 
this first American Congress on Child Welfare held in 
the Argentine Republic in 1916 was the conception of 
the western hemisphere as a unit for child welfare and 
the community of thought and interest among all Ameri- 
can peoples wherever the interests of children are con- 
cerned. — E. N. Clop per in The Survey. 

An international conference of labor representatives 
was held at Washington in July, 1916. Concerning its 
plans the following was written: 

"A pan-American federation of labor is not only pos- 
sible but is necessary. It will constitute a ready and fit 
agency for injecting into international deliberations at 
opportune and critical times consideration for human 
rights, interests and welfare. . . . The realization of 
an international alliance between the labor movements 
of all pan-American countries will constitute a genuine 
parliament of men, one of the highest purposes to which 
mankind has aspired." — Samuel Gompers. 

Neither continent can reach its full development with- 



88 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

out the other. More and more in the future years it will 
be seen that North and South America complement and 
supplement each other. What is done for the regenera- 
tion of one part blesses the whole. In a sense South 
America presents to every North American Christian 
both the home missionary and foreign missionary motive. 
His motto might well be "All America for Christ." — 
Gospel in Latin Lands. F. E. Clark. 

The Best Gift. 

Now when old things are passing away is the time for 
us to make the one supreme gift in which we believe the 
safety and future hope of the world lie — a knowledge of 
the life and teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let 
Christianity go as a beneficent power, with new thoughts 
and new hopes to be a link between all the races of man- 
kind. — Lord Bryce. 

The Commission has assumed that in the sphere of 
fundamental religious values, the spiritual, intellectual 
and social needs whose satisfaction has to do with man's 
right relations to God and to his fellow man and with the 
highest welfare of nations, Latin America does not differ 
from North America. — Report of Panama Commission. 

It is for us, the Americas, to unite for the blessing of 
the world, to make a moral salvage of Christian civili- 
zation. — George Gray. 

Ways of Giving. 

I have had twenty years of observation and experience 
in the evangelization of the Spanish-speaking people of 
Colorado. I rejoice, but not with complacency, in the 
progress I can see. There has been political liberation, 
a social uplift, an educational advance and manifold 



WHAT THE NEW WORLD GIVES THE OLD 89 

reforms in the lives and customs of these people in these 
years. The evangelical church has been back of it all. 
—M. H. MacLeod. 

My hope is to see Latin America rise vigorous, re- 
solved to shake off the yoke of those traditions which 
have so long enervated all her noble impulses and once 
free from these handicaps to see her live as God com- 
mands. — Antonio Mezzorana. 

Whatever may be the final outcome, none of us can 
be indifferent to Mexico and the Mexicans. There are 
perhaps now not less than a million of them on this side 
of the line — some temporarily but others to remain as a 
permanent asset of the nation. A letter now on my desk 
from one of our Mexican ministers says : 

"The invasion that Mexico needs is an invasion of 
Christians and missionaries who will take the lighted 
torch of the Gospel everywhere." — B. F. Fullerton. 

We believe there are two things necessary to bring 
about success in work in Spanish lands — First a far 
more comprehensive preparation of native workers and 
second a great propaganda through the printed page.— 
/. Will Harris. 

All the Greater Antilles are in need of industrial 
schools where the boys and girls of the less fortunate 
can prepare for the battle of life. The hope of the 
Church is, to a great extent in the middle class, among 
the people who have to work hard for a living. This 
class could be won for the church through industrial 
schools. A college for women in each one of the islands 
is another very desirable and urgent need. The Latin 
American woman is virtuous and consecrated to her 
home. The great cry is the winning of the Latin 



90 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 

American women and their training for motherhood. — 
Jose Osuna. 

Gifts Bearing Fruit. 

Porto Rico has been chosen for a service not only out 
of proportion to its size but entirely unique among Latin 
American countries. The past fifteen years have lifted 
it to a plane where it stands alone. Its people are of 
Spanish, Indian and African ancestry. Its climate is 
distinctly tropical. Its history is not unlike that of other 
Latin American countries. And yet it is different. 
What is responsible for this? In a word, the great dif- 
ference is to be found in the fact that Porto Rico has 
had seventeen years of new life, new hopes, new powers. 
Indeed the very physical aspect of the island has 
changed. Its foreign trade has leaped from eight and 
one-half millions in 1901 to forty-nine millions in 1915. 
The school system has spread until out among the re- 
motest barrios there are schools. . . . Our govern- 
ment is sure. Our schools are of high order and improv- 
ing every year. The spirit of the Porto Ricans is a great 
asset. They are ready to co-operate in every cause of 
righteousness and social betterment when they really 
understand it. 

It was evident at Panama that Porto Rico's accom- 
plishment in the way of co-operation of churches had 
placed her far to the front of every other Latin Ameri- 
can country. The churches are united — a unit in aims 
and fundamental faith. Give us now the word and we 
promise that in fifteen years more this solid front now 
forming will have marched in obedience to command and 
will have made clear to other Latin lands the power that 



WHAT THE NEW WORLD GIVES THE OLD 91 

comes from united prayer and work in matters of the 
Kingdom. — E. A. Odell. 

The Duty of Giving. 

"For we 
Who scarce yet see 
Wisely to rule ourselves are set 
Where ways have met 
To lead the waiting nations on." 

We are set between oceans. In the providence of God, 
this continent whether it elects it or not will be a mis- 
sionary force of some sort to governments east and west. 

If twenty-one republics are federated on this conti- 
nent to stand for high democratic principles, high moral 
levels, Christian integrity and Christian character the 
nations of the world will not long stand against their 
influence. — C. L. Thompson. 

Take Thou our hearts, O God of power. 

We bring Thee love, our only dower. 

Though poor and mean the gift may be, 

Thy love can make it fit for Thee.— Alice Guernsey. 

God give us with the time 

His strength for His large purpose to the world; 

To bear before Him, in its face unfurled 

His gonfalon sublime. —A. D. T. Whitney. 

Here the last stand is made 
If we fail here, what new Columbus bold 
Steering brave prow through black seas unafraid 
Finds out a fresh land where man may abide 
And Freedom yet be saved? — Arlo Bates. 



Palmer & Oliver, Inc. 
New York 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




015 844 792 7 



